New technologies mean new opportunities to learn, even if the material itself is generations old. Such is the case of DjangoBooks offerings of the Bickford Mandolin Method in Ebook form. A simple PDF online download and you can have this rich educational heritage at your fingertips in minutes. The latest offering, Book 4 (get the previous three, too!) is an excellent way to improve your rest stroke picking technique (crucial to Gypsy Picking technque) on the mandolin. It's amazing to see how much the Django style guitar pickers borrow from the mandolinists in this sophisticated approach to grabbing maximum sound.

From the website: "Like the first volume, there is heavy emphasis on learning the rest stroke picking technique. Bickford has analyzed this technique in great detail. He explains many of the virtuosic techniques possible with rest strokes: Gliding (or sweep picking), various tremolo effects, alternate strokes, string crossing techniques, etc. Mandolinists with a background in bluegrass and celtic music will be pleased to find numerous hornpipes, reels, and jigs throughout the book (with picking notation)."

99 pages with over 100 examples
View: Table of Contents

Price: $15.00

Purchase: Bickford 4

Also, some cool recent new videos at the Djangobooks Video Archive:

Andreas Oberg

Wawau Adler

Bireli Lagrene

Posted by Ted at January 8, 2008 9:20 PM