2 Finger Mandolin Chord Poster and Chart, Includes Fret Board

We are busy pulling together a collection of Two Finger Mandolin Chord videos to add to AcousticMusicTV.com You can see one in a previous post, more coming. Would love any comments you might have. We also are releasing a new 2 Finger Mandolin chord chart to go along with it. The chart includes the Major, Minor and 7th Mandolin Chords for chords A-G also includes a Mandolin Fret Board. This chart is also available at Zazzle.com as a poster. Please feel free to download this graphic for your personal use. You can check out the new videos over on AcousticMusicTV.com

Two Finger Mandolin Chords Chart, Includes Mandolin Fret Board

To see or buy this Mandolin chord chart at Zazzle.com, click here.

To see the How to play the Two Finger "A" Chord Mandolin Video, click here

Learn How to Play the Two Finger "A" Chord on the Mandolin

We are back to working on AcousticMusicTV.com and are coming out with a line of 2 Finger Mandolin Chord video. These are our favorite mandolin chords to play, easy to learn and easy to move around the fret board with. Along with the videos is a new 2 finger chord chart that you can download.

Learn how to play a two finger A chord on the Mandolin. Learn to use the 1 string, the E string and place your ring finger on the 5th fret, or the A note. Place your middle finger on the 4th fret on the 2nd string or the A string, this note is C#. Play those two strings and you will have a two finger A chord on the Mandolin Two finger mandolin chords are easy to play and allow you to move around the fret board a lot easier Download a free Two Finger Chord Chart for the Mandolin, includes the major, minor and seventh chords. http://acousticmusictv.com/html/Mandolin%20Pages/2FingerAChordMandolin.html

Baritone Ukulele Chord Chart and Key Chart

Baritone Ukulele Chord Chart

We received a very nice compliment from a reader of our book Essential Chords for Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele and Banjo on how much they liked our book and how useful is was. Thank you very much.

They also asked about if we had a chord fingering chart for a Baritone Ukulele. I hadn't put that one together so I sat down this morning and made up one for the regular chords, A-G for the major, minor and sevenths. I also put together the fingering charts for all the keys for the I, IV V and V7 chords as well. We will get this over to AcousticMusicTV.com shortly, in the mean time feel free to download it off of here.

Seven Baritone Ukulele Keys with I, IV, V and V7 Chords

Major Guitar and Ukulele Chords From Our Sampler

A page from our new series of 13 pdf sample charts based on our music and chord books. This chart, Guitar Chords-Major and Ukulele Chords-Major is in the first pdf that comes when you sign up.  It includes the major Guitar and Ukulele chord fingerings. Both of these charts are included in the book Essential Chords for Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele and Banjo, available at Amazon.com.

To receive the free pdf make sure you sign up over on the right, a new Chart arrives every 5 to 7 days.

Left Hand Chords for Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele and Banjo Now Shipping at Amazon

Left Hand Chords for Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele and Banjo

We are pleased to announce the release of our newest music chord book Left Hand Chords for Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele and Banjo.

Left Hand Chords for Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele and Banjo is a left hand version of our popular chord chart book for the beginning music player, Essential Chords for Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele and Banjo. Left Hand Chords contains fingering charts for guitar, mandolin, ukulele and banjo chords and a variety of other music charts for playing rock, folk, country and blues music.

Simple, clean, easy to read fingering charts for all players showing the 7 basic Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele and Banjo chords, A-G for Major, Minor and 7th chords. Includes the I, IV, V chord progressions for each key. Plus movable Guitar fingerings for barre chords, arpeggio scales, and soloing scales for folk, country, rock and blues, and movable Mandolin arpeggio scales. Includes a variety of 4 and 5 string banjo tunings. The charts are designed to be easy to read and follow.

Left Hand Chords also includes blank sheet music and chord box pages for each instrument that you can photocopy. Each sheet music page has the lines spread apart for ease in writing down your music.
Left Hand Chords are based on instruments that have been restrung for left hand players.



Available at Amazon.com (affiliate link)

Vamping and Getting Different Sounds on Your Guitar

We received this question today here at Acoustic Music TV:

I have a question ---- is there a way you can show how chord progression applies to vamping for playing back up chords to songs in different keys and maybe give examples or explain how this would work?

As I play the banjo.

Answer
HI, and thank you for your question. I know a little but not that much on vamping. What I tend to do is to find the same chord in a different place on the guitar or mandolin and play that, which are the instruments I play the most, I also use the relative minor chords, those work pretty well also for a different sound.  To play relative minor chords you play the chord that is 3 half steps down from the root of any major chord, this is the relative minor. So for G play Em, think G, F, Em, for C it is Am etc. This is sort of chord substitution but you get the idea. You can mix all this stuff together to create progressions and new sounds.

I also tend to sometimes play the opposite chord to the key that is being played. So if everyone is jamming and playing the G chord part of the song I might play the D chord in the Key of G or the C. This doesn't really work if we are playing the song in order with all the correct chords but does work if we just start jamming on the song, like if you are playing the verse over and over again and people are just trying different things. I switch it up, throw in a different chord in that key.

The other thing I do is play the movable arpeggios scale for the key. I just play little made up patterns. Once you know the scale then you can play any of those notes and it will sound correct. Great for making up a quick solo that isn't the melody of the song and it sounds correct. I have those charts in the Essential Chords for the guitar and mandolin but never made one for the banjo. I should work on that. You might be able to figure out what they are for the tuning you are working in.



Another thing I do is play a lower sounding version of the chord for the verse and then a higher sounding version of the chord for the chorus or to just throw in a different sound. Lets take a G chord, normally I would play it in the 1st position and it would sound fine, but I could also play it up on the 7th fret on the top three strings. It has a much higher sound but it is still a G chord.

hope this helps, great question

Question on Chord Fingering Boxes, A or B?

Hi all, ok we are working on the layout of the chord pages and a question came up on the design of the Chord Fingering Boxes. I originally thought that I would highlight the root notes of a chord in red. The root note of the A chord is A, the other notes are C# and E. The illustration above shows the chord fingering box for the Mandolin A chord. Some like the root notes highlighted in red and others didn't. I would love you to select your favorite, A or B. The numbers indicate which finger.

Please select your choice in the poll over on the top right corner, A or B, thank you

Mandolin Photo Chord Book, Initial Design Concept

Thanks everyone who made comments and voted on my mandolin chord pictures, Photo A's view was the clear winner but there was also a strong vote for using both photos in the book. Above is an image with my first pass for the page design of the new chord photo book. I would love any comments on it good or bad. I will reshoot the photos but they will be along this line. 

 The thought is to include a variety of ways to show chords, pictures, fret board, chord box, staff lines and TAB lines.  FPO means for position only, I don't have that image at the moment but that is where one would go.

Photo A and Both Are Winners for the View Poll

Thank you everyone who voted on the photo poll to help us figure out which view we should show for our upcoming chord book project. I took a picture of an A mandolin chord from the top and from the front. Posted them here on this blog and on Facebook and the top view won by a big margin. Coming in second was the option of showing both views the top and from the front.
Total of 53 votes
35 people for photo A from the top, 66%
6 people for photo B from the front, 11%
17 people for both photos, 32%

These images will be shown along with chord fingering illustrations in a new expanded chord book I am working on. We also had some great comments on the poll and especially on can we adapt this project for left handed players. I will keep you posted on the project progress.

Marketing Plan for Essential Chords, Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele & Banjo

We have started the marketing for our latest book, Essential Chords, Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele and Banjo, and thought it might make for an interesting study. I have been using the web and social media for quite a while now in all kinds of areas but this will be the first for promoting my own book.  Our book is up on Amazon.com and starting to sell, I have just built a Facebook page, we have a website, this blog and several other sites. So below are the notes from the Marketing plan. Going public like this help keep me on track and see what we can do.
 

Task List for the Marketing Plan for Essential Chords Book

Goal

To increase the sales of Essential Chords, Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele and Banjo Book on Amazon and other sites.
Goal to get the sales rank under 500,000 and ultimately under 100,000

Essential Chords  Current sales are about 1 book a week, with a sale rank of 1,175,775

Notebook Music Chords  Current sales are about 1 book every 2 to 3 weeks, with a sales rank of 871,112

Method/Plan

Build a wagon wheel of promotional sites, images and video that bring traffic into AcousticMusicTV.com and out to Amazon. Show the features and benefits of the book. Mostly updating and adjusting current set of sites for the new book and adding promotional material out on the web. Try to add in additional books into the stream.

Promotion will be for Essential Chords book, which is an updated and renaming of the previous book Notebook Music Chords, I won't be taking Notebook Music down but will watch it and see what happens to it.

Baselines for Measuring Progress

Establish the current base line visitors numbers for, you have to know where you start to see if anything works, here are the current stats as of March 19.
  Sales on Amazon of Essential Chords in March, 1 book a week,
   Sales rank on Amazon for Essential Chords March 19, #1,175,775

   Sales on Amazon of Notebook Music Chords in March, 1 book every 2 weeks or so
   Sales rank on Amazon for Notebook Music Chords, March 19, #871,112

   Sales on AcousticMusicTV for Cafepress music items, Jan-March, 3 items per/month, $6 average, watch for increase traffic to boost gift sales.

   Sales on Lulu for Notebook Music Chords in March, 3 units since mid February

   Sales of Guitar and Mandolin sheet music books on Lulu, 0 sales

   Scribd, 40 reads/month
  
Basic Google Analytics as of March 19
   AcousticMusicTV.com, 95 visits/day, visit 3 pages, bounce rate 52%, Top Keyword- Mandolin Chords, Google
   AcousticMusicTV blog, 43 visits/day, visit 1.73 pages, bounce rate 57%, Top Keyword-Banjo Chords, Google
   NotebookMusicChords Blog, 15 visits/day, visit 1.8 pages, bounce rate 59%, Top Keyword-2 finger mandolin chord, Google
  

Marketing Materials

Make a basic set of graphics for Essential Chords, cover, couple of interior, some instruments, etc
Shoot some basic book promo pictures
Pull together the basic book description
Create picture files of pages and book for Flickr, Picassa, Facebook, blog

Finish Essential Chords Major Chords sampler book for promo

Make up book graphics for the website

Edit customer quotes that have come in for Notebook for use as needed

Websites

Set up Facebook page for acousticmusictv, what name should the page be?
Update AcousticMusicTV.com with Essential Chords Book
Take down current AMTVWeb site and replace with new sampler, replace cover on email sign up boxes

Set up a book page on blog, AcousticMusicTV.blogspot,com and NotebookMusicChords.com
Set up Hub Page, Squidoo Pages

Email List

Fix the signup on web site and the 2 blogs
Take down current autoresponer series and update with new book and links
Develop some email blast to list

Video

Make promo videos for all three books, the chord book and the 2 blank sheet music books, put on YouTube, websites and blogs

Other Stuff

Reconfigure and upload Essential Chords to lulu.com, paper bound and spiral bound, connect to bookstore
Take down the Notebook Chord book on scribd, put up the Essential sampler book
Set up a free pdf version for anyone who buys a physical version of the book

Social Media

Post about the process
Post on Facebook different pages, videos, lessons,
Post on Twitter different stages of the process and other posts
Cross link everything

Track the Analytics, Amazon, Lulu and Facebook visitors and sales.

Reading a Guitar Chord Box

We have been busy creating several new books which you will hear about shortly. Including a redoing of our Essential Chord book and two new blank manuscript books, one for guitar the other for mandolin. I thought I would put up some of the graphics from the resource sections in those books. Below is one on how to read the guitar chord boxes that you see next to staff line.

Our latest book on Amazon, Essential Chords, Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele and Banjo

Acoustic Music TV Gift Products Video

Video for our Acoustic Music TV Gift and Products Store. We have all kinds of cool items for the holidays using the designs and artwork from our Notebook Music Chords and Charts book.

Design include: Acoustic Music TV Designs, 3 Guitars, Mandolin Banjo violin, 3 Electric Guitars, Guitar 7 Major Chords, Mandolin 7 Major Chords, Ukulele 7 Major Chords, String Instruments-Banjo, Guitar, Mandolin, Fiddle/Violin, Ukulele, Retro Microphones, Singing with Microphones

Products include: t-shirts, v-neck t-shirt, long sleeve t-shirts, men and women, fitted t-shirts, toddler t-shirt, sweatshirt, boxes shorts, thong underwear, mouse pad, electric wall clock, journal, throw pillows, keepsake box, framed tile, mug, large mug, apron, Sigg water bottle, dog t-shirt, pet bowl, magnets, calendar, tote bag, messenger bag, gym bag, beach bag



You can see all the products at http://www.acousticmusictv.com/html/Clothing%20&%20Products.html

Acoustic Music TV Notebook Chord and Music Chart, Second Edition

News Release

Today we are please to announce the release of the second edition of our Notebook Chord and Music Chart book. Updated for 2010 and doubled in size this is the essential Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele and Banjo chord and music charts book.  Simple, clean fingering charts for all players showing the 7 basic guitar chords, A-G for major, minor and seventh chords.

Also includes the I, IV, V chord progression for each key.  Plus movable guitar fingerings for Barre Chords, Arpeggio scales, and soloing scales for folk, country, rock and blues.  Basic Mandolin full and 2 finger chords and the I, IV, V progression for each key and movable arpeggio scales.

The charts are designed for taking with you when you go jamming with your friends.  We have also added in Ukulele chord charts, and Banjo chord charts for G and D tuning. Along with blank sheet music pages with chord boxes for guitar, mandolin, ukulele and banjo. Bound with coil binding so the book can open and lie flat, easy to read, or in pdf format that you can print out for your jam or practice book.  A great reference guide for every beginning player.

Book is available at Lulu.com

and Amazon.com

New Coil Bound Version of Our Notebook Chord Charts at www.lulu.com

We are please to announce that we now have a coil bound version of our AcousticMusicTV Notebook Music Charts book. It is available at www.lulu.com. This make it easy to carry our charts and have them with you where ever you go. The binding is a coil so they can lie flat or can be folded back to make them easy to view. Check them out at www.lulu.com

Mandolin Charts for Each Chord

Mandolin full fingering chart for each chord, Major, Minor and Seventh. Also includes a mandolin fret board with notes marked. The mandolin has seemed to just grow and grow in popularity over the last few years. It is a fun instrument to play and on of the most requested of our chord charts. It is great instrument to accompany others with and I find no one asks you to lead a song in a jam circle because the guitar players can't figure out what chords you are playing. Which is great for those of us who have memorized 4 million songs. How do they do it?

We have three more Mandolin charts to go up in the next few days so keep watching. This is one of the set of Essential Chords for Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele and Banjo, Music Chart designed for carrying in your music jam book. To get your free pdf chord sampler sign up on the form in the upper right hand corner. We also now have actually real copies you can buy, check out the column to the right.

You can play the blues on any instrument and the mandolin is no exception. To learn more check out Mandolin Blues: From Memphis to Maxwell Street, available on Amazon, (affiliate link)
 

New PDF Chord Charts Are Up and Ready for Downloading

HI, all, we have loaded up the Free Guitar, Mandolin, and Ukulele Chord and Music Charts in pdf format. Just sign up on over in the sign up form on the right to access our pdf printable chord charts.

We have guitar charts have the seven basic chords with Major, Minor and 7th chords, plus a chart with the Seven Keys in 1, 4, 5 and V7 with fingering in first position.

5th and 6th string Barre Chords Charts. Movable Arpeggio Scales for Guitar, and Mandolin, I looked for a long time to try to figure how to show this. Also available is a chart with movable soloing scales for the Minor Pentatonic Blues, Rock, and Latin scale and one for the Folk and Country scales. Mandolin with full finger basic chords and the 2 finger chords and the 1, 4, 5 progression in two finger chords.

Going back to my childhood and my own ukulele, we have a ukelele chord chart including Major, Minor, and 7th and as an extra bonus blank sheet music for guitar, mandolin and violin. Our sheet music has the lines a little further than normal so it is easier to fill in the notes.

Each chart is a free downloadable printable chord chart, showing fingering and positions, and designed to be printed and 3 hole punched and used in your music jam book. Charts are produced so that they are easy to read and will be a ready reference for your playing.

So just sign up on over on the right side of the site. You will need to confirm the email that you receive and there will be a link to take you to the download page.

Guitar and Mandolin Chord Charts

I was at guitar camp a number of years ago, out on the porch, it was dark and hard to see the song that I had printed off the internet in my jam notebook. I had only started playing guitar and taking the lead on a song in a circle was a big deal. And then I couldn't read the page. It just fell apart. But it gave me the beginning of an idea, to reprint these song pages in nice big type so I can read them in the dark. And that lead me to a second idea, how about some charts for all those guitar or mandolin chords that could also be read in the dark or just easily at a glance.

In the beginning of learning to play the guitar I searched and searched for nice clear information on how to play. I printed out all kinds of pages from the web, most only had half or two thirds of the info I was looking for. Or it was three chords I needed and 35 I didn't. So over the last number of years I have been working on putting together some nice clear charts with the information I have been looking for and making it nice and big so I can read it at a glance.

Notebook Music Charts for Guitar and Mandolin Chord Charts is Completed,
Ready for Using
I am pleased to announce I have finally completed my basic guitar and mandolin charts for the major, minor and 7th chords. Along with a guitar chart of all seven major keys with the I, VI and V chord fingerings illustrated. Plus some blank music pages for guitar and mandolin with nice spaces between the lines, I hate those really squished music pages. Each of these will fit nicely into your guitar jam books, ready whenever you need them. As I complete more I will keep releasing them.

So look over on the right column and sign up and download a sample, mandolin, banjo, ukulele and guitar major key charts. Check out all our charts at notebookmusiccharts.com

Notebook Music Charts at Amazon (affiliate link)

PDF Guitar Chord Chart from Acoustic Music TV

Above is our new AcousticMusicTV.com's Guitar Chord Chart. A nice simple to read chord chart with the 7 guitar major chords illustrated. Shows the basic Major, Minor and the 7th fingerings for each chord. This chart is perfect for your jam notebook. Take it with you everywhere. Also check out the mandolin chord charts and sheet music templates. Just sign up on the right.

You can learn more about our Music Charts at www.AcousticMusicTV.com.
Our newest book on chords for guitar, mandolin, ukulele and banjo (amazon affiliate link)

Free Chord Charts for Major Guitar Keys

Above is our new pdf jam book Guitar Chord key chart. Includes all 7 keys with I, IV,V and V7 chords with fingering for each key. To see more check out the free Quick Chord Chart for Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele an Banjo over on the right. Part of the collection of chord and music chart from Essential Chords for Guitar, Mandolin, Ukulele and Banjo which includes major chords for guitar, mandolin, banjo and ukulele. Also check out the mandolin chord charts and blank sheet music pages. To learn more also check out AcousticMusicTV.com

Mel Bay's Guitar Chords book and DVD, affiliate link.