What songs should I learn on the mandolin?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyzGXm7CBzs. It's a total standard, it's catchy as hell, and it splits into three nice convenient parts that are each dirt-simple on their own. One additional tangential question: One Mandolin book I have has a possible C chord as open on the G and E strings and second fret on D and third on the A. The closest I've found to this in my mando chord books is open g, second fret on d and third fret on A and E. As entropone says, they're just variations on the same chord. Open strings ring longer and sound more melodic. Closed strings make it easier to get a sort of dry, almost percussive sound. So you use different versions of the chord depending on what you're doing. If you're playing traditional folk music, or a solo on a bluegrass song, you want to use open strings as much as possible, so the two-fingered C chord fits in nicely. But if you're playing backup on a bluegrass song, that dry percussive sound is actually desirable — you're playing the same role that a snare drum would play in a Nashville-style country band — so you want to use the three- or four-finger chords that let you close off more of the strings.

Besides Chris Thile, here are some great mandoliners: John reischmann, mike Marshall, mike Compton, sam bush, Ricky skaggs, Tim obrien. A few I really like that aren't the most popular are jethro burns, Herschel Sizemore, and Peter Ostroushko. Bill Monroe is the original bluegrass mandolinist. There's some great Brazilian mandolin music (Jacob do bandolim, Hamilton de holonda). As long as I'm not answering you question right I'd might as well keep going wrong. Do learn everything about chords and theory you can. If you learn in terms of tunes, be sure to figure out the chords to those tunes. (it's easy to be lazy and ignore chords. But the chords are the music more than the notes in the melody, so you're just selling yourself short). If you break it down you'll start to realize that patterns in the melodies relate to certain chords and it will get easier. Practicing scales and arpeggios might not be the most fun. But they'll do you fingers right. Here are a couple I like http://www.mandozine.com/techniques/arpeggios/tim_obriens_arpeggios.html http://www.mandozine.com/techniques/scales/aonzo_family_scales.html And finally Norman Blake's "new chance blues" is a great tune. Good luck

You'll be wanting to visit http://www.mandohangout.com/. In addition to the forum and the tab-archives, you can listen to the 'jukebox' of other forum members playing and wait till you hear a song that grabs you and demands to be learned.

Battle of Evermore by Led Zeppelin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1f2M5G9KG8 The background of this song is mandolin and it's beautiful (and catchy).

Some folksy songs I like to play on the mando: , ,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8S9YkhDjWM, and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QflkWyrvxgA&feature=related. There are chords all over the net. (or MeMail me and I'll send em to ya.) I also have http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0769285414/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ which I would recommend. It's got tablature, chords and a music reference cd for a lot of traditional tunes. Another trick about that two-fingered C chord - move it up a string and it's a two-fingered G chord. Move it down a string and it's a two-fingered F. Makes for some easy/quick chord changes

Have you heard http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSZ40V0teGM?

Old Joe Clark is a fun but pretty simple melody on mando, and you'll find plenty of midis/YouTube clips of it.

Eight Miles High? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98Q5RwLGBUA