Hi, I’m Baron Collins-Hill. Maybe the start to my musical journey sounds familiar… 

When I first picked up a mandolin, I was totally overwhelmed by not knowing where to start. Even once I had a few chords, songs, and tunes under my belt, I felt like I stopped improving and the joy I initially experienced was starting to decline. That’s when I tried to learn to play music with others.

I struggled to find people to play with, and once I did find them I was thrown into the confusing world of Bluegrass Jams, Irish Sessions, and song circles, forced to do my best to figure out how not to make a fool of myself and bring the jam to a grinding halt with my lack of skills and lack of understanding of musical etiquette.

Over the years I built a solid foundation of tools and tricks that helped me learn songs and tunes quickly (often on the fly in a jam situation!). I built a working knowledge of music theory, and I learned to truly understand the inner game of the musical styles mandolin players encounter. Each genre has its own set of rules and etiquette that can be hard to understand, and I made countless mistakes over the years before I knew how to properly join in with other musicians.

Eventually I started teaching the real life skills I had learned, and started my YouTube channel MandoLessons in 2008. Since then, MandoLessons has gained over 100,000 subscribers and 14 million views from mandolinists around the world!

Today, I continue to hone my skills that allow me to join in with other musicians and experience the joy of social music making. All the while I’ve been documenting and streamlining my understanding of how to build my musical skills and how to communicate them in a simple, step by step process.

If you’d like to learn my shortcuts and methods, you’ve come to the right place! Read on…

What You Get In This Course

This course is broken into 7 modules:

Get Ready: Good gear and great technique. I give you all the gear suggestions you need to get started, and cover the proper techniques to set you up for a lifetime of happy picking.

Get Going: The 10 Steps to Musical Mastery. This module teaches you the tools and practices to learn anything you hear by ear

Get Flexible: Understanding Keys. This skill is essential if you want to be able to pick up music on the fly, and you’ll learn how to naturally find the right key for your music and how to adapt when someone throws you a curveball

Get Out: Playing Music With Other People. Playing with others is the greatest joy in music, but can also be scary when you are first learning to do it! I teach you to navigate a variety of social music jams, understand session etiquette for a variety of genres, and build skills to elevate the entire group, making everyone around you sound their best!

Get Picking: Master The Art Of Listening. In this deep dive on a single tune, I teach a step by step guide to learning to pick melodies, taking the guesswork out and letting you focus on the music.

What’s Next: Musical Growth. This module is dedicated to keeping you inspired and improving your art. It can be easy to lose motivation as a musician, and I’ve built a variety of skills over the years that keep me improving my art and engaged in the joy of the musical process

The Vault: This bonus module is chock full of exercises, PDFs, resources, and tools to help you grow as a musician. Whether it’s music theory, speed building exercises, or resources for further learning, this module is always growing as I get feedback from course members!