Does anyone play the mandolin?  

why not try tablature?

Don't give up on learning. I have been waiting TWO YEARS with a brand new mandolin that I got for a birthday to start REALLY teaching myself. It all takes time for one to get the motivation and the desire synched up.

In the past week, I have gone from barely being able to play cords for more than a minute, to now I can play a short tune.

My method is simple, play 5 minutes, take a break for an hour. Play for 5 minutes, take a break for an hour or two. Play for 10 minutes, go run errands. Play for 2 minutes, put mandolin down for night due to intense finger tip pain.

By playing and studying for these short time frames, what I study integrateds itself in me and when I pick up the mandolin again, I am able to do what I just studied. The same thing works with my glassblowing. If I am fighting and fighting with making say a glass ring, and I stop blowing glass for a day, week, month, or more, when I step back up to the torch, I make the ring on the very first try exactly how I wanted it to come out.

I happen to date the son of a bluegrass ledgend on the mandolin. His site is herschelsizemore.com and he has some great instructional merchandise on his site. Check it out~hope it helps you. Listen to the sound clips. Loar's Waltz is a beautiful song, it makes me cry.

I play the mandolin. I learned to play when I was in college. Since then I have played both professionally and for fun, but the most important thing is to keep practicing. You have to join some classes to learn mandolin, you can not do it from online lessons or from books.

I am a professional mandolin player and I learned it from a guru 20 years back. If you have any questions or problems then let me know but you need a teacher to learn mandolin.