No purchase is necessary to enter the drawing, and online registration is available. Only a single entry is allowed per person, and the contest is limited to legal residents of the United States. The contest deadline is May 31, 2009 and a winner will be selected by random drawing in mid June.

The Legacy Elegant?©, valued at $1285, is a solid wood mandolin with a hand carved top, a radiused ebony fingerboard and gold plated hardware.

You can find more details about this model on the Michael Kelly web site, and full contest rules and online registration at the Mel Bay site.

Mel Bay has a couple of new instructional books that will be of interest to the bluegrass community.

First Jams: Dobro is a starter book (with audio CD) designed for young players who want to learn some simple, familiar songs on resonator guitar. It will also be suitable for a beginner at any age, offering tab and standard for the basic melody of 20 jam session standards.

The First Jams series includes similar books for guitar, mandolin, banjo, ukulele and mountain dulcimer, each showing the melody of the same popular tunes, selling for $14.99.

Also new from Mel Bay is Bluegrass On Hammered Dulcimer, which contains arrangements of 24 familiar bluegrass songs for malletheads. This one was written for intermediate to advanced players, and is written in standard notation.

8 vocal popular pieces are included along with common instrumentals, taken from the traditional repertoire and from The Father of Bluegrass himself. Jerusalem Ridge, Big Mon, Rawhide and Bluegrass Stomp appear from Bill Monroe’s legacy of great tunes.

The book sells for $14.95.

Taught by veteran educator Joe Carr, the book presents 16 tunes (some with multiple variations) intended to introduce the player to a variety of essential techniques.

I spoke with Joe via email about the book.

This is the first book in a new series that will include titles on bluegrass, blues, Irish and more. This book is not specifically bluegrass focused, but is intended for beginners who want to use primarily Amercian folk material as a starting place.

Emphasis is on correct pick direction – a crucial skill, sections on standard notation reading, and basic scales.

The idea is to ground players in good technique and teach them the skills to continue “self-guided development” on their instrument.

Having studied guitar under Joe for three years, while attending South Plains College, I can attest to the efficacy of his teaching. Students at any level would be well served by following Joe’s instruction. This book is aimed primarily at beginners, but more are soon to follow for both differing genres and skill levels.

Originally released in book form only, the updated product is now available with an accompanying DVD. The product teaches the basics of mandolin technique, note-reading, music theory, and a large number of tunes ranging from classical pieces such as Chopin’s Prelude, Op.28 No.20, to traditional tunes favored by bluegrass and old-time players such as Carry Me Back To Old Virginny, Grandfathers Clock, Shenandoah, and everything in between.

The tunes are presented in a variety of keys. Standard notation is the only presentation of the music in the book, no tab.

Complete Mandolin Method is available for $12 as book only, or $20 for the book and DVD.

Easiest Banjo Tunes for Children was written by Larry McCabe, who has several other Mel Bay instructional products for banjo to his credit. This slim volume was created to offer simple, fun and easy to play versions of familiar banjo tunes, arranged with smaller hands in mind.

The book will be available from retailers who carry acoustic and bluegrass instructional materials, as well as online resellers.

The book was written by Dix Bruce and Bill Evans, who also recorded a version of every song from the book for the two companion CDs. Bruce has more than 20 books available from Mel Bay, and is an accomplished guitarist and mandolinist and music writer. Evans is a noted banjo player and teacher, with three instructional DVDs from AcuTab.

The songs in the book include bluegrass, old time, country and gospel favorites drawn from the recorded work of Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs, The Osborne Brothers. Jimmy Martin, Doc Watson and many others. You’ll find jam standards like Rocky Top, Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms, Nine Pound Hammer and Little Maggie plus Bill Evans’ banjo arrangement for Train 45 (with examples of possible variations), as well as Cripple Creek and Sally Goodin.

The book’s introduction covers important jam basics like using the capo, finding the best key for your voice, and how to transpose the chords shown for each song into a more suitable key for both men’s and women’s voices.

Bill shared a few thoughts about this new release.

“My hope is that this will be a real resource for the acoustic musician who is looking to expand their repertoire or catch up on some old favorites that they may have missed the first time around. You can listen to the CD track and then go to the sheet music to learn the chord progression and lyrics. The relatively simple banjo tab melody offers a way for you to begin to work out your own arrangement of the tune ‚Äì rather than trying to learn and memorize someone else’s version.”

This 304 page book (with 2 audio CDs) is available wherever bluegrass instructional materials are sold, or directly from Bill Evans’ web site where you can also find a sample tab and audio.

The Parking Lot Picker’s Songbook will be available soon in a mandolin edition as well.

It’s part of their new Instrumental Innovators series, which profiles instrument makers who have had a major impact on the industry. Dave Smith, Stuart Spector and Paul Reed Smith are also included in the series to date.

The Bob Taylor DVD features a lengthy interview with Taylor, and a factory tour with his commentary, along with an overview of the history of Taylor Guitars. He also discusses his newest venture, R. Taylor Guitars, a separate company that builds handmade, luthier-quality guitars in limited production.

Bob Taylor, Instrumental Innovator should be available wherever Mel Bay products are sold, or directly from their web site.

The book contains a mix of kickoffs, turnarounds and solos from some popular Monroe recordings. Bluegrass Stomp, I’m Working On A Building, Rawhide and Uncle Pen are transcribed in this 48 page book.

You can find the complete song list and some sample pages on the Mel Bay site.

Each tune is shown in both tab and standard notation, including Emu’s Blues and Zakir from Brand New Can, and Big Man From Syracuse, Hot Nickels and Shoot The Moon from At Home and On The Range.

The book will be available wherever bluegrass and acoustic music instructional materials are sold, and a complete list of tunes and a number of sample pages can be found on Mel Bay’s site.

The sound of the acoustic guitar captured my ear and inspired me to learn how to play it. Interestingly, when I was eight years old a family friend bought a 1956 Martin D-18 that once belonged to Norman Blake; the friend then sold it to my parents. They gave it to me for my eighth birthday and I still have that guitar.

If you have an interest in Brad’s guitar playing you should click on over and give it a read.

Mel Bay has just released to DVD Joe Carr’s Super Mandolin Picking Techniques. This was previously only available on VHS. The 30 minute program teaches mandolin players how to develop a strong well-coordinated right-hand technique that will lead to super fast, strong and accurate picking.

Included are play-along exercises for alternating, combination and consecutive down picking. Joe also covers Monroe style picking and two styles of Crosspicking.

The price is only $14.95 and a PDF file for the free instructional booklet that accompanies this DVD is available for download at www.melbay.com/DVDBooklets.