Three Things To Try With Your Metronome

If you haven't done these things before try them. They may be painful or unpleasant at first, but they are not really hard and will make you a better musician.

1. Try setting your metronome to tock on the 2nd and 4th beats of the bar instead of the 1st and 3rd while you play a tune you know well. If you've never done it before, it might be hard, but do it slowly and try it for a while. It gets easier, and your rhythm and timing get better. (Note: this isn't really a metronome setting, your head has to do the trick.)

2. Try just playing rhythm chops along with your metronome with the beat on the 1 and 3 or the 2 and 4. Try switching between the two.

3. Before you play a fiddle tune or try an improvisation, play the chords along with the metronome on the mandolin. Make sure you know the chords and then try to play the tune or the improvisation along with the chords in your head. Think of the chords while you play the melody or improvise. Keep the metronome going.

If you're interested in rhythm and timing and have 25 bucks, you could get John McGann's Rhythm Tune Up DVD. He also has a range of more advanced material if you're interested.

This Is A Great Age To Be A Mandolinist

Or frankly any kind of musician. Never before was it possible to go online or onto iTunes and buy just about any tune you wanted. And then to get hold of a piece of software like Transcribe! or any of a dozen other applications that allow you, for little or no money, to play along with the finest musicians in the world on any tune you want to play at any speed you want to play it.

If you are not doing this yet, you are really missing out - start today.

Note that although a lot of music on iTunes is not copy protected, some of it is, but in that case you just need to burn it onto CD in order to be able to slow it down with the software of your choice. A lot of people use Audacity, which is free. But really, pay these developers, it's so little for creating such a world.

Conservation of Energy

I've been putting in a lot of work to try to develop my mandolin skills this year, and I've noticed a couple of key improvements. Recently I've been noticing that my left hand fingers don't gallop about the fretboard quite like they used to - they move much more quietly and calmly from place to place, in what I think of as an orderly fashion. This makes it easier to play faster and it also makes playing itself much less effort, and more enjoyable. I am able to use less downforce on the string too.

I've also noticed my right hand developing the ability to get more sound out of the string with less force, which also contributes to an increase in speed as well as improved tone.

I think the specific exercises that have got me this far are the ones on Mike Marshall's Mandolin Fundamentals DVD, but also the work I've put in on learning breaks by famous players and new arrangements of fiddle tunes has helped a lot too. I still have a long way to go, but it's encouraging to see progress.

Play Very Slowly

If I set my metronome for about 80 bpm and play two 8th notes per tick, I've found it's really easy to fix problems I'm having playing a tricky passage. It really works, and I notice the difference when I bring the piece back up to speed.

Video Yourself

This is something I've just started doing, and I've been surprised at how much I can learn from watching back what I play - all my mistakes become glaringly obvious. Of course, this can be painful at first, but the thing about mistakes is that once I've seen them, it's usually easy to fix them. Here's an example, with plenty of mistakes:



I made this as part of the Mandolin Cafe song a week project.

Perfect Makes Practice

I used to get a bit confused when I was learning from method books as to when I should move on from the exercise I was working on. The text seemed to compel me forward, the very fact that there was another page with more things to learn made the page I was on seem like something to leave behind. I'm used to reading novels, so I would always read ahead.

Turns out, I should not have moved on to the next page until I had everything on the current page down perfect. I know, sounds crazy. But that's really how it is.

Practice Hint: Relax

If I'm having trouble playing a particular passage at speed, usually I find that at least part of the problem is tensing up during that passage. The way to fix this is to play it slowly, of course, but even more important is to focus on keeping your left and right hand relaxed while you play it slowly. If I can learn to play a piece slowly and stay relaxed, I can then speed it up succesfully. If I learn to play it well slowly but don't relax, I can never get it up to speed.

Study technique

As a follow up to the last post, I've found it was a really good idea to follow a planned approach to developing my technique. I've only really been able to actually improve my playing by studying and repeatedly working on technique exercises. While it's a lot of fun and useful to work on music theory and add new pieces and licks to my repertoire, without a strong foundation of technique I found playing the mandolin to be hard work.

And when I get out there under the lights (when they have lights), the only thing that stands between me and miserable failure is technique. A while ago I bought a DVD that I didn't have high expectations from, this one:

Mike Marshall's Mandolin Fundamentals For All Players #1-Building Technique Through Exercises and Melodic Studies

I hadn't done much technique work previously, but I followed Mike's advice carefully and persevered diligently for several months, and it has made a huge difference to my playing. The main difference is that I actually enjoy playing a lot more now, knowing that I'm capable of making those licks and runs under pressure, and I have some technical expertise left over for improvisational flourishes and unexpected situations. Thank you, Mr Marshall.

Play something you don't know

I think I waste a lot of time practicing things I can already play or come easily to me, when I should be practicing the things I find hardest of all. Try this, if you need some practice with sliding (I know I do) - be sure to listen carefully to the Dan Tyminski CD this comes from to get the slides correct.

Carry Me Across The Mountain, in G:



I believe Adam Steffey is the mandolin player on that track. Here's me playing it, in case that helps: