Customer Reviews

DVD- The Sam Bush Mandolin Method

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's simple math. Music teachers in my area charge about $20 for half an hour. The Sam Bush Mandolin Method costs $40 to $55 (depending upon the vendor), and you get 2 1/2 hours of instruction from one of the best mando players on the planet. The choice is simple, huh?

Maybe not.

If you're not self motivated and keep forgetting the difference between the end pin and the tuning pegs, go to the teacher. However, if you're more of a do-it-yourselfer, are motivated and don't need or want someone looking over your shoulder, a teaching aid like this is an eye-opening (more like eye-popping) experience.

Sam Bush strikes me as a very friendly person, and it comes across on the disks. His presentation is very encouraging and makes you want to learn and work at playing the selection of songs. He plays them through full speed (you couldn't buy a front-row seat at a concert and be this close), and then breaks them down and plays them at a slower pace. He plays many difficult licks several times, and even demonstrates little variations to make them easier to play or sound slightly different.

There are also little talks about practicing to build speed, selecting equipment, etc. At first I was a little disappointed because I knew that there was going to be a segment about the Gibson Sam Bush model mandolin. Here we go, I thought, time for a commercial break. But it wasn't like that. Sam was talking about his old mandolin, held up the new mega-bucks Gibson, and basically said, "Here it is. It sounds pretty good." End of commercial, and we were back to the music and learning. Very classy.

To wrap it up, this package will be over the heads of raw beginners. Intermediate players will spend hours and hours absorbing his music and ideas, and will become better mandolin players. That's money well spent.

P.S. to Sam: Do your fans a favor and put out a DVD or video on playing slide mandolin. That would be very cool and it's never been done.

As a new mandolin player, I've gotten great value from this DVD set. Easy pieces to play nicely broken down into bite-sized learning chunks. Also fun to get to know Sam Bush a little better.

This double DVD is so much fun! I've played mandolin for 5 years or so and this is a cool way to advance. Just watching how a pro plays up close with teaching details is worth the price of admission. Sam has been playing since he was a child so I never hope to catch up but I'll try. I recommend it without hesitation.