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These free mandolin tabs are written out for you two ways, in standard musical notation, and also in a style of tab that I invented. Instead using numbers on the strings to represent the fret that you play, I put the name of the note.
This method does require you to learn the eight notes of the scale, and where to find them on your mandolin. This may seem like a “royal pain,” but trust me, this will give your music a Big Boost. You absolutely need to know the name of the note you’re playing, instead of just
Some of the greatest traditional bluegrass songs were apparently written by someone named “Public Domain” or “Traditional.” What kind of decent mother or father would name their child that? In this article I’m going to acquaint you with a songwriter named Gussie Lord Davis, who has seldom been credited as the composer of such well-known folk and bluegrass songs as “Maple on the Hill” (1880), “Goodnight Irene” (1899),“One Little Word” (1899), “Just Set a Light” aka “Red and Green Signal Lights”(1897), “In the Baggage Coach Ahead” (1896), “He’s Coming to Us Dead” (1899), and “Make Up and Be Lovers Again” 
In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the photograph. By the next year he established the Edison Speaking Phonograph Company to sell record players in furniture stores across America. Improvements by such inventors as Alexander Graham Bell and Emile Berliner helped to make “gramophones” coveted items for home entertainment. Sales of records went to 4 million units in 1900, up to 30 million in 1909, and over 100 million by 1920. By 1922 alone, consumers could purchase such hit records as “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans,” “Carolina in the Morning,” 
I can’t tell you why, but I find playing Shortenin’ Bread almost addictive. When I start to play it, I can barely force myself to stop. I must not be alone because this song has been popular since the early to mid 1800’s. The song was first collected and published in 1915, and was known as a ‘plantation song.’ All this talk about shortenin’ bread 