Mandolin Exercises For Dummies

Dummies focuses on the skills that players often find challenging and provides tips, tricks and plenty of cool exercises that will have you picking with the best of them—or at least much better than before! Mandolin Exercises For Dummies is packed with instruction—from hundreds of exercises to drills and practice pieces. And it gets better. You'll also have online access to downloadable audio files for each exercise, making this practice-based package a complete mandolin companion.

• Puts an overview of the fundamentals in perspective, helps you to use exercises to limber up, and much more
• Dives into the major and minor arpeggios with triad patterns, then moves on to major 7th and minor 7th patterns
• Details the major scales, then moves on to mastering the minor scales with practice exercises
• Contains tips to help you practice better, including using a metronome, playing with recordings, and more

Master the basics and sharpen your mandolin-playing skills with this reliable resource.

Introduction 1

Part I: Getting Ready to Practice 5

Chapter 1: Getting the Basics Sorted: Mandolin Fundamentals 7

Chapter 2: Limbering up to Get into the Groove 15

Part II: Learning Scales 25

Chapter 3: Mastering Major Scales 27

Chapter 4: Discovering Three Types of Minor Scales 37

Chapter 5: Bringing Color to Your Playing with Pentatonic and Chromatic Scales 63

Chapter 6: Connecting Scale Patterns to Extend Your Range 83

Part III: Exploring Arpeggios 93

Chapter 7: Taking Notes One at a Time: Major Arpeggios 95

Chapter 8: Seeking Darkness: Minor Arpeggios 105

Chapter 9: Adding a Fourth Note to Create Seventh Arpeggios with Major Triads 115

Chapter 10: Summoning up Seventh Arpeggios of the Minor Variety 135

Chapter 11: Creating Drama with Diminished and Augmented Arpeggios 157

Part IV: Chords 165

Chapter 12: Tying Everything Together: Diatonic Harmony 167

Chapter 13: Seeing that Less Is More with Three-String Closed Chords 177

Chapter 14: Personalizing Your Playing: Improvisation 199

Part V: The Part of Tens 207

Chapter 15: Ten Top Tunes to Put Your Skills to Good Use 209

Chapter 16: Ten Tempting Tips on Tempo to Increase Your Playing Speed 221

Appendix: Using the Audio Tracks 227

Index 233

Don Julin is professional mandolin player, instructor and recording artist. Don has spent the last 30 years challenging the boundaries of mandolin and helping others do the same. He is the author of Mandolin For Dummies.

Learn to:

• Build your skills playing scales
• Play arpeggios with confidence
• Master chord forms and progressions

Practise makes perfect with this hands-on resource for mandolin players of all skill levels

For mandolin players, practise makes perfect! Use this hands-on resource to get the most out of your practise sessions. Get hundreds of exercises in various keys and positions, use drills to help practise time, build your technique like a pro, practise scales and full-length pieces, and much more. Take your mandolin playing to the next level today!

• Get ready — pick up an overview of the fundamentals, use exercises to limber up, and much more
• Explore arpeggios — dive into the major and minor arpeggios with triad patterns, then move on to major 7th and minor 7th patterns
• All about chords — practise major and minor inversions, and get groovy with major 7th chord inversions
• Get on the scales — start up with the major scales, then move on to mastering the minor scales with practise exercises
• Tips and tricks — get tips to help you practise better, including using a metronome, playing with recordings, and more

Open the book and find:

• A full review of the basics and reading music
• Warm-ups specific to mandolin players
• Major and minor scale patterns
• Practise exercises for chords and scales
• Tips and exercises for connecting scale patterns
• Tricks for chord progressions, along with practise notes
• Ten tunes to practise everything at once