We're big on Mel Bay Publications. It's astounding to think how many of the world's guitarists got their start from a Mel Bay book, or teacher who started with MB the last six decades. You'll rarely find any current player without come some connection to the pedagogy powerhouse. From the World War II era when the guitar was making its entry into Big Bands (Mel Bay's Orchestral Chord System for Guitar), through Elvis and the Beatles, the Mel Bay method books have had a major impact on the prominence of the guitar in the last half of the 20th century.

We're thrilled, of course, with their excursion into other instrument studies, including jazz, rock, and classical guitar, fiddle, piano, harmonica, accordion, and mandolin. We've enjoyed working with Joe Carr and the MandolinSessions.com crew and look forward to the release of our own Mel Bay book, "Getting Into Jazz Mandolin" early next year.

Read the Jim Salter AP article: Mel Bay Still Teaching Music at 60

Visit MandolinSessions.com

Read back issues of Jazz Mandology

Posted by Ted at September 7, 2007 6:06 AM