Category Instruction

The Richter Mandolin Camp is excited to announce Sharon Gilchrist as one of our mandolin instructors for 2025. Sharon began touring the national bluegrass circuit in Texas for several years before earning a BA in Mandolin Performance at Belmont University in Nashville, TN. For two decades Sharon has performed with many of the groundbreaking legends in bluegrass and new acoustic music including The Peter Rowan and Tony Rice Quartet, Scott Nygaard and John Reischman in The Harmonic Tone Revealers, Darol Anger, Tony Trischka, The CA Bluegrass Reunion Band, Laurie Lewis and the Right Hands, Uncle Earl and many others. She is also a respected and influential music educator offering private mandolin instruction, multiple online mandolin courses at http://www.pegheadnation.com, as well as teaching at music camps internationally. In 2024, Sharon joined the John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project as a featured artist and co-producer on their Vol 2. album, to be released in February 28, 2025. Sharon lives in Nashville, TN and currently performs with the John Hartford Fiddle Tune Project Trio and the CA Bluegrass Reunion Band. 

The 2025 Richter Mandolin Camp for the Rest of Us has opened registration. This year instructors are Jim Richter, Don Julin, Lauren Price Napier, and Laurelyn Dossett. More information can be found at the 2025 Camp Info page: https://richtermandolincamp.com/2025-richter-mandolin-camp-12th-annual/

The Jim Richter Blues Mandolin podcast captures all of the Mandolin Blues Lick of the Day series and any other blues-related videos that I post. Consider subscribing to it for weekly, if not daily, content!

After 15 years I revisited one of my favorite Zeppelin tunes and one of my earliest Zeppelin YouTube videos (my first I believe). Ten Years Gone is a beautifully composed and harmonically complicated Jimmy Page piece on Physical Graffiti. At the time I did my YouTube video, I was still figuring things out both in terms of arrangement and transcription. I was discovering new sounds and trying to marry my blues technique and my love Mike Compton’s playing into an approach that was truthful, authentic, reflective of the original source material, and easily accessible (as I’m not the most complicated player). In terms of transcription, I hated Tabledit and was so happy when I moved to Progression and then Notion.

With the development of this new site (the 4th iteration of the jimrichter.com website in 20 years), I’m going back through old Tabledit transcriptions and updating. As I started working on Ten Years Gone, I knew it needed some work overall. I have now rearranged it, have it closer to the original (though mando-centric), and have included the accompanying guitar tab (not exact, but meant to serve as a practice track). I’ll be doing this with some other older arrangements. This is one I’ll make available to all, as it really is a testament to serious adaptation of rock guitar to mandolin.

Typically such arrangement/transcription would only be available to Tab Members or those who receive instruction from me. But, I think it’s important for people to expand their ears and consideration of rock on the mandolin. This is not a Pickin’ On Zeppelin version, an early “Great Balls of Fire” NGR style, or high octane Billy Strings. I love all those I mentioned, but those are much more bluegrass-based than rock-oriented. This is truly trying to envision how Ten Years Gone would have been played by Page had he written it for the mandolin. For those who are interested in other such arrangements, please consider becoming a Tab Member. 

At Mandolin Camp North and Richter Camp, I’ll be teaching how to play this and other Led Zeppelin and classic rock tunes.

Below you have PDFs for mandolin only and mandolin w/ guitar (I arranged the guitar to capture the main guitar theme, but also realize that it is layered throughout), as well as Notion files for both mandolin only and mandolin w/ guitar.

Notion for mandolin only; Notion for mandolin and guitar; mandolin only PDF; mandolin and guitar PDF