Essential Techniques for Mandolin
HOMESPUN
Taught By Chris Thile.
Level 3
85 Minute DVD or VHS plus music and tab booklet

Here's a lesson that will thrill and inspire mandolinists at all levels. Chris Thile shares his own successful formula for developing right and left hand dexterity, improving speed and accuracy, and playing with heightened musicality.

Chris launches into detailed instruction on holding the pick, correct hand position and wrist action, getting a good balance between up and down strokes, and more. He provides numerous exercises for releasing hand tension that will make all the difference as you learn to play tunes such as Hop the Fence, Red Haired Boy and Swallowtail Jig.

Warming up by playing scales, arpeggios and triads will enhance your speed, clarity and knowledge of the fingerboard, and Chris runs through routines to incorporate these into your practice sessions. In learning his beautiful Ode to a Butterfly, you'll use pull-offs and hammer-ons, position shifting, ornamentation, and other important techniques that add style and character to your playing. As a bonus, you'll hear astonishing performances of Chris's original tunes, When Mandolins Dream and Raining at Sunset.

This video will provide the techniques you'll need to get to the next level, and to reach exciting new goals in your mandolin playing.

About Chris Thile
A mandolin virtuoso of outstanding expressiveness and originality, Chris Thile has, since a very young age, played with every major artist in contemporary bluegrass. (He won the Mandolin Championship in Winfield, Kansas at the age of 12.) His first Sugar Hill recording, "Leading Off," was named the #1 bluegrass album of 1994 by The Chicago Tribune, and a single climbed the "Bluegrass Unlimited" radio survey for 5 months. His second album, "Stealing Second," garnered rave reviews as well. He has appeared on Prairie Home Companion, TNN's PrimeTime Country and Music City Tonight. Chris was a founding member of The Grass is Greener with Richard Greene and David Grier, and is currently a member of Nickel Creek, contributing sparkling, crisp mandolin work, songwriting and vocals to their sound. Nickel Creek has released a new CD in 2002.