Teaching in Arizona!

Been some time since my last post and a lot has happened since then..

●I pushed hard on my bagpiping and made it up to Grade 3 solo! What an honor!

●I moved down to Arizona! Yes, it gets hotter than heck but so beautiful! Monsoon season is my favorite! (I like a little excitment.) 😉
P.s. if you haven't experienced one you need to Google 'Arizona Monsoons'!


●Met a wonderful man and got married!

●Not only that but my two sisters and I all got married within 3 months! Yeah, sorry Mom and Dad! 😥

●My husband and I were able to attend an epic event. The second largest ever gathering of people to listen to the prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the Cardinal's stadium! That was a crowd and a half, let me tell you!
https://www.lds.org/church/news/president-nelson-invites-record-crowd-in-arizona-to-help-gather-israel?lang=eng

●Worked for a year now in the string repair department at the awesome, and very large, Milano Music on main in Mesa. Was a great experience and made good friends. 😀

●And now we finaly get to today! *phew!
Teaching music full time in Mesa and now in Phoenix too!
For more info on lessons click on my lessons tab up top ⬆️!

Good to be back again after all the excitment and would live to hear from you!
Feel free to comment below!

-Erin (Patterson) Woolf 😊

Blurb #2: Festivals, competitions, and getting more mando for your buck!

I'm back!
Back to my house, back to my wifi, back to microwaves, and back on the blog!

I spent this past weekend camping up at the OFOAM (Ogden Friends Of Acoustic Musicians) festival and state instrument competition, which was up in Ogden (as you probably figured). :)
Some friends and I decided to drive up last week to compete and see the amazing Adam Steffey and the legendary Sam Bush!

Sam Bush is well known for his rockin' mandolin and he did not disappoint on Friday, playing well into the night and cold!
I got in a good rest that night though cause Saturday morning brought with it the mandolin competition! (And for those of you who have done one but not the other, performing for an audience and play for judges presents two very different psychological challenges! The latter of which is quite a bit more stressful for me!) ;)

But I had been working towards this for months and so I was ready!...I hoped. ;)
(Fyi, I played my own arrangements of Salt Creek and New Chance Blues. Two great tunes!)

So, how did I do...?!

...yeah, other than the grubby camping garb...

I got the blue ribbon! :)
I was pretty excited to win first! I also got some great prizes like the Loar mandolin and the automatic contest entry to nationals and 5-day festival pass at Winfield!
I was also happy to be with my Mother when I got the award.
My Mom has always been such a great support to me at competitions, performances, and beyond! And so it was such a treat when she surprised me and drove up that morning to see me get my award!
Love you Mom! :)


By the way, if you are looking into buying a not-so-expensive mandolin that has good sound and build, I have to say the Loar LM 220-vs, at under $400, is great! (Most mandos only start sounding good at the $1,000 point, and then can even climb up to $10,000!)
I have to tell you I wasn't sure about it at first, but once I got jamming on it I was pleasantly surprised!
I play a Collings MT myself, which is just beautiful and hard to top, but I will enjoy playing this Loar at jams and festivals cause of its good bluegrass tone coloring, projection (which is important for acoustic jams), and playability.


The music at this festival was great, and it had some new and interesting bands that caught my ear, like: Elephant Revival (you have got to watch their percussionist play! YouTube them!), Run Boy Run (beautiful arrangements and vocals), and the Ugly Valley Boys (just plain bluesy fun).

It was a fun festival with prizes, friends, and jamming, but one of my favorite parts about it was meeting Adam Steffey and the beautiful music his band, The Boxcars, played!
Adam pulls tone out of the mandolin like Rumpelstiltskin spins gold! (...that was weird...Redo!)
Adam pulls tone out of the mandolin like no one else! He also has so much finesse and taste in his playing!
Plus, if you have noticed, he is one of the few non-tenor bluegrass male vocalists. ;)

Such a great and genuinely nice guy! (And 6'4" by the looks of it, which continues to say a lot for tall mandolin pickers.) ;)

So, now I'm back home relaxing (and thankfully showered!) and making plans to go to Winfield this September.

Until next time!
-E :)

Jumping into classical!

So I decided to write a little bit about the classical mandolin. I know that in the U.S. the classical mandolin has been growing, though still quite small compared to bluegrass.

I got hooked on playing classical music on the mandolin around when I started taking lessons with Evan Marshall in 2006. I studied with him for about two years before I moved out of state for school. 

If you know about Evan you know that he is thee classical mandolin man in the states, specializing in Italian duo-style. What is duo-style you ask? 

Here is a video to demonstrate:

As you may have noticed by watching, or by trying it out yourself, executing a clean, fast, and dynamic duo-style is really tough. I believe I practiced around two hours a day everyday to 'be in shape' to just play very simple arrangements.

Then while learning Italian style I ran into the German style of Caterina Lichtenberg. 

Example:

You notice that with the Italian mandolin there is lots of tremolo. This is the technique created to extend to life of a note, because a single plucked note on the mandolin has very little volume and the decay of that note is quite rapid. Also, the pick/plectrum used for this style is typically thin, imitating the ostrich feather/quill used back in the day.

For the German styled mandolin you depend on 'rest strokes' (a very sharp angle of attach going through both strings in the set and resting on the string below) for volume and note sustain. Plus, the picks used in the German style are typically very thick, like the ones popular in bluegrass playing today, imitating the tortes shell picks (which you can't buy today).

There you have some rough basics of classical mandolin and if any of you are interested I have written down a few classical mandolin resources and links that you might enjoy.

• There is a really nice book and cd out there by Butch Baldassari for intermediate and even beginning mandolin players. You can find "Cantable" here or on Amazon and iTunes (mp3s). I really love this book because it has just really beautiful music written out for mandolin and guitar. Plus, the cd is one that can stand alone making it not just useful but a stand-alone as well.

• Caterina Lichtenberg Mandolinist

• The Emerald City Mandolin Quartet My favorite mandolin quartet!

• Evan Marshall Mandolinist. And here you can find his great instructional and solo sheet music.

• The Classical Mandolin Society

• Avi Avital Mandolinist

• Carlo Aonzo Mandolinist

Speaking of Carlo Aonzo I would like to rap this up by sharing with you one of my favorite mandolin albums out there. Sorry, no youtube videos of this anymore but HERE you can listen to it. Enjoy!

Peace out!

Greetings! Play me some of that Bandolim!

Hey, Erin here! I want to welcome you to my blog!

Even though I now live in Utah County I am originally from Southern California. That said you will be glad to know that as I write about all things music, especially concerning the mandolin, that I will be able to delete all, or most, of the "like"s, "totally"s, and "dude"s out of my posts for your own benefit.
(Dude! Like aren't you totally stoked about that?!) ;)

For each post I will choose a topic to talk about, from strings, picks, and picking techniques to song arrangements, performing, and general deep philosophy.

Make sure to leave your comments below. I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics and if you have any ideas or have found some sweet post-yeeha north african bluegrass band please send me a line and I will check it out!

Now onto the main event!

Hamilton De Holanda

I meet this guy in 2006 at the Mandolin Symposium in Santa Cruz. (This is a great mandolin camp, by the way but that's another post.)

Born in Brazil, Hamilton started playing at the age of 5. He grew up playing the Portuguese mandolin, called a bandolim, in Choro bands. He later added on two more strings (low C's) to his bandolim giving him a larger range and the added blessing of having to tune 10 strings. Yay! ;)
When I got to see and hear him play I was throughly blown away! Not only was his technique and jazz chops out of this world but as I sat there watching him I was throughly transported.
He doesn't just have the capability to play but he has the spirit to play! Dude! He plays music with his SOUL! :) He is one of my musical inspirations just because of his soulful performances alone!

Okay, enough said. :) I would like to present to you Hamilton De Holanda!

Don't forget to leave your comments! :)