Hello and welcome to my final blog post for my in-depth mandolin project!

What are you going to prepare for in-depth night?

For the in-depth night, I will be preparing a mandolin tune. The song I have chosen is “Caledonian Laddy” which is a fiddle tune. The song is quite fun and cheery because it was made for dance. It is Scottish folk song inspired which I find interesting because I feel I have spent less time learning about folk music and would like to try more. I will play the tune once through at a medium pace because it matches my skill level and because the tune wasn’t designed to be played incredibly fast.

What elements will you capture?

The song will show how I have grown to become comfortable with my instrument. I have chosen it because it was the first full tune I started working with, so I can show the most improvement. It shows my improvement in the skill I wanted to improve in the most, picking. It also shows how I have learned about new mandolin music because it is Scottish folk music which I had never listened to before this project. I hope that in my performance I can capture how I have improved my skill because I can play a clear and smooth version of the song.

How will the audience interact with your presentation? 

The audience will be watching and listening to my performance of the song. While they are watching and listening there are different parts of the performance that I hope they notice. The audience will be able to notice the clarity of my playing of the notes which has been something I have been working to improve on throughout my project. I also hope that they notice the happiness of the song which was what draw me to it. I wanted something that was fun to play for the performance because it is a celebration of my achievements so far. The audience will also get to see the way I play. They will be able to see that I use the proper picking pattern and proper fretting hand placement which have been two important components of my learning.

What was a highlight for you and why?

The main highlight for me with this project was learning about the community of people who play the mandolin. It isn’t as popular of an instrument as others, so I found it really interesting learning about all the people, programs, and music in the community. I don’t think this would have been able to be a highlight for me without my mentor’s vast knowledge of all kinds of mandolin music and resources, so I am extremely grateful to him.

Here are links to some mandolin songs I have found and enjoyed through this project:

Summer’s End – Sierra Hull

Lemons and Tangerines – AJ Lee & Blue Summit

Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World – Chris Webster

Another highlight of this project has been the moments when I reach points in my learning where I can apply the skills to actual music. Practicing skills can be tedious and repetitive but the moment when you play it in a song and hear it come together makes it worth it. I find that in the moments I feel proud of myself for my improvement and impressed that I can actually make music with the knowledge I have gained.

What was particularly challenging and why?

One challenge I encountered throughout my whole project was knowing what direction to take my learning next. I created a plan before starting the project but as I learned I find other routes that could be interesting and found that some routes weren’t possible. Being able to choose what I learn is something I find very exciting, but it also leaves room for a lot of choices I have to make. One reason this was a challenge for me was that I felt like sometimes, I didn’t know enough about my skill yet to make decisions. It was hard choosing songs or techniques to learn when I didn’t understand how challenging they could be. I also found that sometimes I wouldn’t know all the directions I could go with a song. Luckily, throughout the project, I was able to turn to my mentor. He was able to offer me options and information which have helped me make decisions with a better understanding of what I’m choosing.

Where might this skill take you next?

This skill has definitely inspired me to want to continue to learn new instruments. I have enjoyed my time learning the mandolin and I want to continue to improve at it, but it has also shown me what it’s like to learn new instruments. The guitar was the first instrument I learned, and it has been challenging for me, but I have found that learning the mandolin, though it did have challenges, has been much more enjoyable because I didn’t have to start at music ground-zero. Through listening to the music with mandolin in it I definitely have grown a liking for the banjo which could be an interesting next instrument. The mandolin is also commonly an accompaniment instrument so in the future if I were to meet guitar, fiddle, or other folk instrument players I would love to play with other people. I feel like an opportunity like that would improve my creativity in music. This is because my mentor has talked about his experience with finding a tune and just riffing around with it with other players for hours. I have never been able to do this and think that I could learn a lot about the mandolin from something like that.

Learning Update:

The past couple of weeks have been focused on refining the tunes I have been working on. I have been practicing “Caledonian Laddy” every time I pick up my mandolin to prepare for in-depth night. I feel very confident in the first couple of lines of the song, so I need to spend more time focused on the last lines to bring them up to the level as the first. I have also been practicing “Cold Frosty Morning”. My mentor recorded an audio clip of him playing it, so I have been using it to improve my consistency as I play the song. I have also been learning a modified A minor scale to better understand that tune as well. To wrap up those tunes in the next couple of weeks I want to continue to constantly practice “Caledonian Laddy” and learn the chords for the two tunes to expand my chord knowledge on the mandolin.

Thanks for reading!

Hello and Welcome to the fifth blog post update of my in-depth on the mandolin!

Mentorship:

1. What kinds of learning opportunities does the mentor provide to expose you to new learning?

One way that my mentor is exposing me to new learning is by talking about the mandolin artists and events that he knows about. I’ve learned a lot about a variety of different players from what he has recommended. This has led to me finding out more about the music mandolin is used for as well as led to me being more interested in the instrument. I’ve learned to appreciate artists I probably would have never heard of if it weren’t for my mentor’s knowledge of different mandolin players.

2. What kinds of learning opportunities exist to reinforce new learning?

I have a really extensive collection of materials that I have access to for the mandolin which helps make it possible to learn anything with an effort put in. My mentor has lent me his collection of mandolin magazines and each copy has a section for beginners. They give me access to new songs and techniques as well as good advice for new players. I also have a music book with pages of chord charts and basic scales that is perfect for learning new songs I’m interested in. With access to videos and songs on the internet on top of that, I have access to a  huge number of skills I can learn and ways to learn them.

3. What kinds of opportunities exist that might accelerate learning?

One opportunity I have from my mentor that has helped accelerate my learning is being able to have recordings of the songs I am learning. When I am learning new tunes, my mentor records them on his mandolin and sends me a copy. This has helped me learn better because I am able to hear the tune all together played properly before I learn it. This helps a lot with getting the pacing right and being able to move fluidly through a song. This also gives me something to compare my playing with to make sure that I am on the right track. Recordings of the tunes I am learning are hard to find so having them to listen to has been very helpful.

4. When you get together what do you talk about?

During our meetings we usually talk about my progress since our last meeting, the questions I have, and what I will work on next. Most of the time is spent discussing the questions I have because that’s one of the big reasons we meet. I’ll explain what the problem is, and we will discuss options on how I can move past it. Also, during our meetings, my mentor talks a lot about his experiences in the past with the mandolin and music. This makes the meetings more interesting and helps me to learn more about the mandolin community.

5. What is going particularly well in your mentoring relationship right now?

I think our communication about what we are working on during meetings is going well. My mentor is really good at clarifying what I need help with a going over the answer thoroughly. This makes it really good for me in between meetings because I have a good understanding of how I should be spending my practicing time. My mentor is also very enthusiastic about the mandolin which has helped us to work well together. This makes our meetings fun for me because he is always happy to share the knowledge he has. This has also helped me learn knowledge of the mandolin that I would have never thought to ask about.

6. What are you learning about one another?

I’m learning a lot more about his experience in music as we meet more. He is in a folk band with his wife so it’s interesting to hear about his past experience with that as well as what his band is currently up to. I find it really interesting to hear about how music is something he does for fun but that he also plays gigs. That is because I am interested in getting more serious about playing music as a hobby and would enjoy doing something like that in the future. I like to talk to my mentor about what music I am listening to and have learned to play. I hope this helps my mentor to learn more about me because the music I listen to is really important to me.

Learning Updates:

This week my mentor and I spent most of our meeting talking about how in-depth will be in person. I am planning on performing the first fiddle tune I learned so I can show the most improvement in my performance. I’ve been looking at the song and thinking about how I want to perform it and with what kind of backtracking.

Recording of my playing the fiddle tune:

I have also been continuing to work on scales. I found a music book from my mentor with a bunch of scales, so I’ve been practicing them, especially the G major scale. This has helped a lot with getting better at producing clearer notes as well as being good practice for remembering to do alternate picking. I also started practicing a new tune called ‘cold frosty morning’. My mentor recommended it to me because it’s very different from the last tune I played. It is a slower song in a minor key. This makes the tune less cheerful than my last one which I find interesting. In the next couple of weeks, I want to continue to practice the scales I’m working through as well as the tune I plan on performing. I also want to finish up the ‘cold frosty morning’ tune and try learning a chord song after.

Thanks for reading!

Hello and welcome to my third mandolin in-depth post!

Learning Updates:

In the last two weeks, I have been focusing on learning note positioning. The first way I am doing this is by learning some major scales. I have learned the C major scale and have been improving the clarity and speed on that scale. I am also starting to look at the D major scale. The reason I have decided on the D major scale is that I am learning a tune in the same scale.

‘Caledonian Laddy’ is a fiddle tune that I found in the beginner section of a Mandolin Weekly magazine. I tried it out and thought it would be a great first tune to learn because it is relatively simple, but still allows me to start playing songs. I spoke with my mentor about it and he gave me some tips on how to play it. He also told me that the first-ever song I chose just happened to be from the first-ever copy of the magazine that he received which I thought was an interesting coincidence. I have also been listening to lots of mandolin music that my mentor recommended to me. I ended up really enjoying two of the artists he mentioned. One of them was AJ Lee & Blue Summit and the other was Sierra Hull. In the next two weeks, I have two main skills I want to work on. The first is to continue learning new scales and working on the fiddle tune. I am also planning on learning some chords from a chord chart that my mentor is making for me. To continue learning about mandolin music my mentor mentioned some other women who play mandolin that I could try and I plan on listening to them.

Mentorship:

1. What went particularly well during your mentoring sessions?

I think the flow of the meeting worked well in this week’s meeting. We were able to easily switch between topics and there was never a point where I didn’t know what we should talk about next. I think this was because my mentor and I prepared well for the meeting. Before the meeting I listened to all the music my mentor subjected, wrote down notes about the music, prepared a song to learn and recorded any questions I had about what I was working on. Another reason that I think the meeting had a good flow to it was that there were three stages to it. The first stage was discussing what had happened in the past two weeks where we talked about the music and what music I enjoyed. Then, I was able to ask my mentor any questions that had come up over the weeks. Lastly, we talked about the steps for the next two weeks and he gave me tips about that learning. This layout helped me to know when I should talk about certain parts of the project and kept the conversation productive.

3. What learning challenges emerged? / What did you do to hold yourselves accountable for the learning?

One challenge that came up was that we don’t know each other very well yet. More specifically, because we don’t know each other that well my mentor doesn’t know how much music knowledge or technique I have. This can be a challenge because my mentor doesn’t know what he should explain more or what I already know so he doesn’t talk about. This can mean that sometimes I can get confused when he is talking about topics I don’t understand. To be sure that I am working to get over that I like to ask a lot of questions and clarify anything I am not completely sure of. In our most recent meeting, I was having trouble with where I should hold my hands. I asked him about it and he told me about the specific rules about which fingers are used for each fret. This knowledge was super useful for me. My mentor said that he wouldn’t have thought of saying that because it just comes to him naturally. By asking the question I was able to learn important skills that I might not have learned if I didn’t reach out and ask the question.

5. What three strategies could improve the quality of your mentoring interactions? / What is the action plan for implementing each of the three strategies?

One way I could improve the meetings is by sending my mentor an idea of what specific topics/ideas I need help with during the meeting. In our last meeting I had written down notes about topics to discuss for myself but when I would ask him, he would answer from the knowledge he had right then. This change would allow my mentor to prepare anything he wanted or just get an idea of what we were doing beforehand. I could do this by simply including a couple of notes that I made for myself in the email confirming our meeting date and time I usually send. Another way I could improve the meeting quality is by asking more questions. I have questions that I write ahead of time, but I could work on coming up with more questions from what my mentor says. I could do this by listening carefully and thinking through what I am still wondering about after my mentor answers. One last way I could improve the meeting quality is by writing down the actions I have to take after the meeting immediately after it ends. For the last meeting, I had something immediately after my meeting, so I didn’t write anything down about it right after. I think this could impede the notes I have because they could be better if the ideas and tasks discussed in the meeting were fresh in my mind. I could make this a habit by having all the supplies to write down the tasks I need to accomplish as well as by creating a clear idea of what I need to write down.

Thanks for reading!

Hello and welcome to my first update on the progress of my project! I have been having lots of fun getting to know the mandolin.

Mentorship:

How did your mentor gain their experience/expertise?

My mentor has gained their expertise through a commitment to their skill. He started playing the mandolin 40 years ago because he had an interest in music. He has been learning and improving at the instrument ever since. Now with the internet, it’s very easy to find resources for anything you want to learn but the mandolin wasn’t a very popular instrument outside of bluegrass and folk music when my mentor picked it up. This meant that he had to go looking for resources and has been able to compile tones of music and pieces of writing about the instrument through the years. This has helped him to be an expert because he has learned so much about the instrument and the people in the community. This all gives him the experience to not only teach me how to play the instrument but also teach me about why it’s an interesting and unique instrument to learn.

What were those experiences like for your mentor?

These experiences were important because they helped him find a community of music players. Being around people who are passionate about what you are passionate about is a very exciting and motivational experience. His expertise in mandolin helped him become part of a folk band. When he talked about his band it sounded like he enjoyed meeting new people and having a reason to get out and play music. I found this very interesting because I have talked with other people who were interested in playing music together and would love to ask him more about his experiences.

What wisdom have you gained from your mentor so far?

In my learning so far there have been two things that stood out as important pieces of knowledge to remember. The first piece of wisdom he had was about where I should start my learning on the mandolin. I had originally planned on learning chords first but after meeting he recommended learning some scales before I start with that. I think that this is a great piece of advice after thinking it through. Learning the scales first will help me to recognize the sheet music and notes placements. This knowledge will give me a better understanding of chords and help me to learn them faster when I do them later on in this project. The second piece of wisdom he talked about was how he highly recommends going to a music camp or something similar. I think this is a great piece of advice because being around others when you play can help you grow your confidence and expand your knowledge. Going to a camp isn’t possible right now because they are mainly for the summer, but I do think spending time playing with my friends who play instruments or are also learning instruments right now could be a great way to replicate this kind of experience.

What have you learned so far, in terms of facilitation strategies, that might contribute to your own development as a mentor?

A skill that my mentor has is that he is extremely good at making connections between ideas. I noticed that as I would ask questions or tell him about the project, he was able to make a connection to a story or an experience he had. This helped us to progress the conversation easily. I also found this allowed me to get to know him better considering it was our first meeting. I would like to get better at this so that I can help create a comfortable environment with good communication in my future leadership experiences.

Learning Updates:

My learning so far has been focused on exploring the instrument to gain familiarity. My mentor has lent me some copies of a magazine called ‘Mandolin World News’. I have found these useful for me as I get to know the instrument. This is because they have a special beginner section where they talk about different tips and include simple tunes to learn. This has helped me a lot because they include notes as well as tabs of which fret to play. This has helped me begin to recognize the notes with where they are played on the instrument.

I’ve also learned a bit about the mandolin’s use in music. I learned that not only is the instrument used in folk and classical music but it’s also used frequently in bluegrass. I plan on learning more about this and listening to this style of music during my project. I have a couple of plans for my learning in the next two weeks. The skills I want to work on for the next couple of weeks are scales. For this, I want to memorize one or two common scales. I would also like to improve the clarity of my notes because I have found that I have been struggling with holding down the two strings at once which muffles the sound of the note. In the next weeks, I would also like to listen to more mandolin music. My mentor has made some recommendations so I am planning on listening to those and finding some artists I like to add to the normal mix of music I listen to every day.

Thanks for reading!

Hello and welcome to the first blog introduction to my In-depth project for 2022! This post will go over the main parts of my project plan. This will help guide me through my learning so I am able to improve my skills throughout the time

What?

For my in-depth this year I have decided to learn how to play the mandolin. The mandolin is a stringed instrument that is commonly heard the most in different kinds of classical and folk music. The mandolin I will be learning is an eight-string instrument but has only four notes in double-stringed pairs to create the mandolin’s signature sound.

Here is a picture of my mandolin:

There are three main focuses I have for my project. The first skill I want to learn is chords and strumming. I have experience with this in guitar, but the chord shapes and strumming will be different on the mandolin. This skill will help me memorize the place of the strings and the size of the fretboard by touch while I am doing a familiar skill. Another skill I want to learn on the mandolin is picking. There are two main ways of picking that are used separately and sometimes even together. The first is picking with a guitar pick. I am more familiar with this because I use a pick for most of my guitar playing. I will still be learning this skill though because the mandolin is a different size than what I am used to on the guitar as well as having double strings. The other form of picking is hand-picking. I have tried this much less on the guitar than the other style, so I am excited to learn this from scratch. This will be one of the skills I hope to improve on the most from the start of this project to the end. It offers a special challenge being something I am completely new to and having a new kind of string layout. The fact that the instrument has double strings helps it sound so beautiful, but I think this will make picking more complicated because I must hit both strings to play the note. The last mandolin part I want to learn is not a hands-on skill. For this project, I am interested in learning as much as I can about the mandolin, and I think the best way I can do that is by learning and listening to music made for the instrument. I hope to expand my music taste by researching songs that highlight the instrument. Doing this will help me learn more about the mandolin and motivate me to learn new songs and skills.

Why?

A couple of years ago I started to gain a real interest in music. I decided to start learning the guitar to go deeper into this interest. I have been playing the guitar pretty much every week since then and I have really enjoyed it. The process of learning a new instrument was tedious at times for me but was overall fun and interesting, so for this project I wanted to do it again. I first came up with the idea of learning the mandolin because of a song I really enjoyed. I watched a live performance of the song and I saw one of the artists was playing the mandolin. The instrument sounded beautiful to me and playing it seemed interesting.

Link to the performance I was talking about is here.

Another reason I want to learn the mandolin is that I want to improve my music skills. The skills I learn with this project can be applied to other stringed instruments I play. I also think that the more instruments I learn the easier it will be to learn more. This is because I will pick up more skills that can be used and better techniques for learning new skills.

How?

The main way I plan on learning the skills is by using a two-phase process. Phase one will be all about breaking down the skill into different parts. This would include practicing going through the motions, listening for the right sounds, and memorizing placements/patterns. Phase two is about putting the skill into use. This is to test that I have become comfortable with them. I would do this by finding a song or a part of a song that includes the skill and learning it. This shows that I have learned the skill because I can not only perform the skill on its own but also mixed with other skills. I find that this usually shows me when I have truly gotten a skill because I have had times where I thought I had a part of a song down. However, when I tried to play it with other parts it was much more difficult than when I was playing it isolated.

The first skill that I plan on learning for my in-depth is the chords and strumming. This is the skill I will be working on for the next couple of weeks. I am starting with this because I think it will create a solid base skill to use throughout my other learning. I plan on learning songs for each of my skills and learning to strum chords first makes sense for this. Lots of songs include strumming or can be simplified to strumming so it will allow me to play full songs faster. I can also add to this as I learn new skills to play more complicated parts mixed with strumming. I will be learning this by memorizing chord charts like the one below and learning strumming songs to get better at switching between different chords.

After this, I will learn skills like pick and hand picking as well as skills for playing more complex riffs like hammer-ons and pull-offs. I will do this using the two-phase practicing plan laid out before. The timeline for these skills will usually be one week of phase one and one week of phase two for each skill. Though, these could vary for skills like hand-picking that are more difficult for me. I plan on practicing the mandolin for 20-30 minutes every 1-2 days for the beginning of my project. I planned this because I have heard that getting used to the double strings can be painful. After I have gotten used to that, I might change to longer practices farther apart if I think that would be more enjoyable.

Mentorship:

I was very excited to find a mentor for this project who can offer me help and was interested in the project. For my mentor, I was able to get in contact with someone that has been playing the mandolin for 40 years. Not only do they play the mandolin, but they also have experience playing music in a band. I am very grateful that they are enthusiastic to help me learn the instrument because they obviously have enjoyed their time playing it. I am excited to meet with them and ask any questions I come across during my learning. I would also love to learn more about their experience playing with other musicians because that is something I am interested in trying. Right now, we haven’t met yet because we are waiting on a record check but we will be able to meet in the next week or two when the check comes back.

Thanks for reading! I am excited to start diving into my project even more in the next couple of weeks as I meet with my mentor and start playing the mandolin regularly.

Leaders Can Make Things Happen:

“Power is the ability to get things done.” -Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The first topic that I felt was important is the idea that leaders are people that can always make things happen. The idea is that when you are looking for a leader or are looking to be a leader it’s important to have the ideas and the abilities to make projects happen. You can have the resources and the plans, but it takes leadership to get every aspect working.

Leaders must be able to get projects done not just by starting them and getting tasks moving but also by being able to keep progress moving when faced with tough situations. It’s important as a leader to be able to make accomplishments even when you might not enjoy what you must do because you know as a leader it must be done and you have the ability to do it.

This can apply well to TALONS on a bit of a smaller level than what John C. Maxwell was thinking about when he was talking about this part of potential leaders. As a grade 10, it’s important for me to help make tasks happen for planning like the leadership project and the adventure trips. I should be putting my ideas out there and helping problem-solve to make progress with what has to be done for these events. This can also apply to looking for potential leaders. If there are grade 9s that are working hard to make progress they might benefit from more responsibility or less support with the tasks they are working on.

The Tour Guide Mentor:

“A leader’s role is not to control people or stay on top of things, but rather to guide, energize and excite.” -Jack Welch

Another hugely important concept was the Tour Guide leader from the modelling part of session three. The idea here is that the best way to be a leader is to work with the people that you mentor, not send them off the do the work you don’t want to do.

This is important because it shows the people you mentor that you can be trusted to mentor them on the project and shows that you are there to support them all the way through. This applies to the modelling step because by going through the work with them they can pick up on the ways you do it and might learn from your example in the process. From the book, we learned that people learn the most from what we see, hear, say, and do and this process usually helps to include that kind of deeper learning.

This has big applications for how TALONS works because we are easily able to apply this when we work with the grade nines. As someone who should be modelling what is excepted of us, I want to focus on applying the idea to not just tell them the task when I am mentoring. This can be easy to accomplish when we are working together to share ideas for the task and solutions if we run into problems. It is a responsibility of mine to make sure that the process of going through the planning helps to make them ready for grade 10 by letting it be a collaborative activity that they will learn from and remember.

I Monitor:

“Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.”-John Crosby

This last concept is part of the steps to developing more leaders and it is the ‘I monitor’ step. The idea for this step is that once you have modelled the task and helped mentor them through a task, they will start to take responsibility. This step is about how you should still be there to support them after they have a better understanding if they need help with resources or guidance through the process.

This step is highly useful to make the transition from mentee to new leader feel less scary for people. Being thrown out into the deep end doesn’t work for everyone so having that check-in to make sure they are getting the hang of having more leadership responsibility can be a great help.

This concept has a lot of applications for the way we work as leaders in TALONS. When we are grade 9s we learn our way around the leadership tasks and processes so that we can be a class of mentors the next year. As we are going into the leadership project and the adventure trips the grade 9s have much more experience so that means they will be able to do a lot more of the work with less support because they have gained the knowledge to do the planning. This doesn’t mean that the grade 9s just work through everything on their own though. It is still as important as ever for me to be there as a mentor to offer my experience and ideas. Offering the help we can as grade 10s will hopefully help to make the grade 9s more confident and knowledgeable leaders for next year.

Sources:

Crosby, John. “Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.” QuoteHD. 2021, http://www.quotehd.com/quotes/john-crosby-quote-mentoring-is-a-brain-to-pick-an-ear-to-listen-and-a-push-in. November 26, 2021.

Kanter, Rosabeth. “Power is the ability to get things done” QuoteNova. May 1, 2018, https://www.quotenova.net/authors/rosabeth-moss-kanter/q2pp3k. November 26, 2021.

Maxwell, John. Developing the Leaders Around you. The John Maxwell Company, 2014.

Welch, Jack. “A leader’s role is not to control people or stay on top of things, but rather to guide, energize and excite.” QuoteFancy. 2021, https://quotefancy.com/quote/1463510/Jack-Welch-A-leader-s-role-is-not-to-control-people-or-stay-on-top-of-things-but-rather. November 26, 2021.