African Americans in Oldtime: 10 Resources for Learning the History of the Music

Here at Oldtime Central, we recognize that the music we all love wouldn't exist without the immense contributions of African American musicians. We celebrate these contributions - they're a huge part of what makes...

So You Want to Learn the Mandolin: Online Resources for the Neophyte

The Mandolin was my first instrument.  I still remember how hard it was to learn music from scratch as a young adult, and I remember how long each individual tune took me to master. ...

Paul Kirk: Tune of the Week

Paul Kirk is an Ohio-based fiddler and teacher who for many years has been posting videos of fun and often rare oldtime tunes through his Tune of the Week (TOTW). In his videos, Kirk...

Take it slow: tools to slow down recordings

Overview: Learning tunes by ear is great – slowing tunes down makes that easierThere are many free and paid programs that can help you do thatYouTube and Timestretch are two good, free ways places to...

Banjo Resources

Oldtime banjo players are probably the luckiest of the lot in finding learning materials online. I have no good explanation for why, but there's a bunch of good stuff out there from technique to...

Guitar Resources

There's no where near as many resources out there for oldtime backup guitar players. That's a shame because it's such an important part of contemporary oldtime (it wasn't common until about a century ago)...

Fiddle Resources

There's a ton of resources out there on the web to help you learn oldtime fiddle. This is a compilation of various places you might want to investigate on your fiddle journey. The list...