Homespun

These two videos will give you a great start in getting the funky sounds of traditional blues mandolin. Good for beginners and intermediate players.

Lesson 1:

Mandolin novices will start out by learning a basic G scale and how to alter it to create a blues scale. After demonstrating his pick strokes and tremolo technique, Steve dives right into Divin' Duck Blues by the great Yank Rachell.

From there he launches into some powerful and challenging songs, each one of which shows you something new on the instrument: The Lonesome Train That Carried My Gal Away, Juanita Stomp, Saturday Night in Jail and Shotgun Blues.

Lesson 2:

Once again, Steve takes his repertoire from the great jug and string band era of early 20th Century American music. To help you build your song list and playing ability, Steve passes along material from some of the old mandolin blues masters that he learned from - Charlie McCoy, Howard Armstrong and Yank Rachell, among others.

You'll soon be playing your own versions of Jackson Stomp, Prater Blues, Corrina, Corrina, Sittin' On Top of the World, Long As I Can See You Smile and Texas Tommy.