How To Play Mandolin by Larry McCabe is an easy-to-follow guide for beginners which includes and instructional CD. This best selling method published by Santorella Publications contains an expanded section devoted to note reading, tablature and scales.
The incredibly helpful diagrams make this simple step by step approach easy to follow. Learn to play all your favorite traditional tunes in popular styles with this best selling “easy guide” to mandolin from Santorella Publications.
I Know Where I’m Going • Ode to Joy • Mozart in the Mountains • Boil Them Cabbage Down • Cripple Creek • Blue Bell of Scotland • Saints Go Marching In • Chris Stephens’ Waltz • Jenny Jones • Roustabout • Amazing Grace • Old Joe Clark • Liza Jane • Billy in the Lowground • Carolyn’s Draught • Sally Gardens •Bill Sullivan’s Polka • Liberty • Over the Waterfall • Soldier’s Joy • Wind That Shakes the Barley • Devil’s Dream • Red Haired Boy
FOREWORD by the author, Mr. Larry McCabe
Today, new mandolin players associate the instrument with bluegrass giants like Bill Monroe, Jesse McReynolds, and Ricky Skaggs. But the instrument has roots dating back centuries before the advent of bluegrass.
After it was brought to this country by European immigrants in the 1800s, the mandolin was played in mandolin orchestras, vaudeville shows, classical concerts, and family parlors by a diverse range of enthusiasts including society ladies, college students, touring professionals, and of course immigrant musicians from Italy, Greece, Germany, and other countries.
Mandolin music was first recorded on cylinder records in the 1890s. The instrument had become so popular that the 1897 MontgomeryWard’s catalogue mentioned the “phenomenal growth in our Mandolin trade.” By that time, high-quality mandolins were being built in America by companies like Lyon & Healy and C.F. Martin. Eventually, the round back “tater bug” mandolin gave way to the sleek, powerful flat back model perfected by Orville Gibson.
In the 1950s, rock and roll crowded out much of our old-time and ethnic music, and mandolin pickers suddenly became a threatened species. However, the backlash against commercialism that was the essence of the folk revival of the late 50s and early 60s brought the mandolin out of the back seat of the old ‘57 Chevy, and the dynamic little instrument has been here to stay.
