Anyone got any feedback about the latest Mark Nelson book?

http://www.melbay.com/Products/30364BCD/favorite-oldtime-american-songs-for-ukulele.aspx

I'm quite interested but the price has me hoping to get some ideas of review before i order it, anyone checked it out yet?

Wow, the price - nearly $10 less on Amazon, but still - for something from a mass-market publisher that seems steep. If they have it at my local shop I'll try to remember to take a look at it this weekend.

I have yet to see it at any of my local stores only online, so please do let us know your reaction if you find it and get to flip through.

For what it's worth the book seems pretty thick at 232 pages, which could explain the higher price. The Mel Bay website says you can get 30% off through September 1 using the discount code MB30. That works out to a few dollars cheaper than Amazon, not counting shipping/tax.

Neither the Mel Bay website nor Amazon lists the songs included. "Old-Time" could be a a wide range of songs, but to me it suggests the same old filler you find in many collections, all of which is easily available for free. The tab description sounds like single note which to me is a complete waste because I can read standard notation and doing so for melodies is easy. This might be completely wrong, but when I first saw the book advertised my reaction was "lazy" and "rip-off". If it actually has interesting songs, or if the tab is anything more than just simple tabbing of the melody, then I'm wrong. But I've got mountains of music books and most of them are garbage. Mark Nelsons finger style book is one of the few that is worth anything, so I was initially interested in seeing this one - but I haven't seen the book anywhere, there are no samples available on-line, the book isn't popular on Amazon, and all the things I've learned are warning signs of a bad music book are glaring from this one.

katysax said:

Neither the Mel Bay website nor Amazon lists the songs included.

Click to expand...

Actually, the Mel Bay site does. Click on the "Contents" tab below the cover graphic.

There are a couple of sample pages which make it look very simplistic... one note melody lines with chords listed above. Nothing like the nice fingerstyle arrangements in his Juke'n the Uke book.

Shame. I love my Mark Nelson book.

Mark Nelson's finger-picking books are great as is his playing. This new book, however, is not a finger-picking book. It is what it is and that is old folk melodies with single line melody and chords written above. If that is what you want it is good for that. If you want to learn finger-picking go to his website and he has at least four great finger-picking books. He also responds to emails. I've learned a lot from him.