Customer Reviews

Mandolin Pickers Fakebook

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

 

 

I bought this and returned it. I can't read mandolin tab. If you're like me and need standard notation for your mandolin music, buy the fiddler's fakebook. Same songs, similar introductory material, and it's in standard notation. That's where I'm going now, to order the fiddle book. But if you read tab, this book will suit you fine.

If you can't read music, this is great-- any idiot can read tab-- and it's a musical smorgasbord of Euro and N.American trad so you can learn a variety of things.

However, some of the arrangements (esp. for the non-improvisational genres, like Irish and Scottish) are way off. Bluegrass and country are open forms, where the musician improvises withon a framework, and the tunes are "outlines" of chord progressions. Irish and Socttish, ont he other hand, are closed forms, where the tunes are played straight up, no improv. You can go anywhere int eh world and hear irish trad an play along...and Brody's book has some of these arrangements wrong enough to jar the ear.

The Irish musician should get O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland if s/he wants to be serious; this book is useful, but only as an intro. And if you read music and don't want to bother with tab, get the fiddler's verion. Same tunes etc just written in standard notation.

As noted, this is a colleciton of mandolin tab, not standard music notation. If you can read standard notation, you're better off with any number of fiddle books (including the Fiddle Player's Fakebook from the same publisher) but if not, this is a great reference. I read for guitar and bass, but not mandolin, so I've gotten a lot out of this book.

This series concentrates on traditional and old time music, which suits me perfectly as that's what I play on mandolin and banjo. (I also have the Banjo Player's Fakebook, which has most of the same songs- though not all- in frailing and clawhammer styles.) Just about every classic old time song, and a lot of the popular Celtic songs can be found here- Shady Grove, Little Beggerman, Joe Clark, Sleepy Maggy, etc. If you're an ear player or tab player just starting out, this book is a great place to learn a lot of the tunes played by string bands.

My son who does not read music was delighted with this book and has learned several tunes already. I would recomend it to anyone who has trouble reading music.

"The Mandolin Picker's Fakebook" contains a nice collection of pieces notated in tablature and it contains indeed an extensive discography.
However, the only things specific to mandolin seem to be: the tablature notation, a list of eight recordings which are of specific interest to mandolinists (half a page, while all the rest seems to be folk fiddle) and some extremely thin introductory material which seems to be mostly copy-and-paste from the same author's "Fiddler's Fakebook", no information on picking-technique at all etc. When copy-and-pasting, they didn't even bother to change the word "fiddling" into "picking" or similar.
All in all: a nice collection of tunes. Good discography. Just be aware of its limitations for mandolinists.

Excellent ouvrage complémentaire du "violin fake book" du même auteur, violon et mandoline, même combat...

This is a good resource to learn the essence of a tune and supply your own embelishments and style. If you get easily bored like me, its a good source to skip around