“This is the best mandolin book ever written. It starts right at the beginning and moves forwards to other styles, influences from other countries and players. It gives us tunes, chords, rhythms, different techniques, some theory about different modes all written in a step by step logical way, that is interesting and sometimes funny and, unlike some music books very easy to read.”
“In my opinion, Mandolin for Dummies simply is the best overall instruction book for mandolin available today. It goes beyond the beginner level to provide a general introduction to numerous styles of mandolin playing. I love that it is not just one more bluegrass book, but introduces the player to ragtime, jazz, Irish, Brazilian, and Dawg music as well. Chapter 7 on playing "Jethro Burns"-style 3 finger chords takes the mystery (and the misery) out of learning a gazillion different chord shapes. There is also great material on rhythm, theory, scales, right hand techniques like tremolo, advice on mandolin purchase and care, etc. This is just a great book at a great price. At almost 400 pages, I have been working through it for several months now, and have still not made it to the end.”
“I have not normally been a fan of the ".. Dummies" series (I have generally found them to be verbose but not containing a lot of information), but I love this book. I first got turned onto it after watching some of the author's instructional videos on YouTube. Perhaps one of the best thing about the book is how it covers a wide variety of musical genres and how they apply to the mandolin. From my experience I have found that the old time fiddle tunes are easiest to learn and the book discusses those as well as how you can expand on the basic tunes to play bluegrass style. Once you get more comfortable with improvising on tones and rhythms you will perhaps be ready to experiment with jazz or blues.”
“The provided internet link to the 91 audio tracks is great. I have just picked up the mandolin in past 3 or 4 weeks after playing guitar for years. Track 69 is a full demo of the chords and melody for "O Sole Mio" Italian Love Song and Track 70 is "Come Back to Sorrento" which gets you thinking of a fine Italian restaurant. Best part I could play all the mandolin chords and melody lines after about 2 hrs of practicing along with the tracks! I also really liked the full tab and chords for "Wayfarin' Stranger" on Track 40. I struggled for 3 weeks to try to figure out this tune by watching Youtube lessons but could not capture the nice double stops used. My wife even said I sounded pretty good on that mandolin. Thanks for very useful instruction book. Highly recommended.”
“Don wrote a great introduction to the Mandolin. It is a complete tool kit to get from holding the Mando to cross-picking 'grass licks. For those who aren't familiar with Don Julin, he is an accomplished musician who has played with the greats and recorded some wonderful music.”
