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  #31  
Old 06-16-2017, 05:59 PM
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Cypress Knee Cypress Knee is online now
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I have a mandolin and bought Pete Huttlinger's "Mandolin for Guitar Players" I will highly recommend this book, because even though I haven't mastered the mandolin, he included many guitar parts to the mandolin sons, so my repertoire has been greatly expanded.

CK

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  #32  
Old 06-16-2017, 06:19 PM
DesolationAngel DesolationAngel is offline
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Originally Posted by posternutbag View Post
There is a lot of interest in Octave Mandolins right now. Mandolinists like Sierra Hull and Sarah Jarosz are utilizing them extensively. My guitar/mandolin teacher has one. The are more resonant, and their register tends to fit most voices better than a mandolin. But here is the thing, I can't really see a scenario where I would choose an OM over a mandolin or guitar.
A mandolin is a superior instrument for playing melodies (shorter scale length, a better melody register) and a guitar is (usually) a better instrument for vocal accompaniment.

I am sure there are scenarios where an OM is perfect (maybe as the sole choral instrument in an Irish session), but, to me, they seem overspecialized.
Sarah Jarosz was my first introduction to an octave mandolin... she plays one capo'd up on Build Me From Bones and I love the sound of it. On the other hand I'm not often a fan of a regular mandolin. Each to their own, I guess?
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  #33  
Old 06-16-2017, 06:22 PM
DesolationAngel DesolationAngel is offline
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Originally Posted by Frogstar View Post
If you have local access to a Trinity College octave mandolin, mandola, or mandocello to try out, I'd recommend that. I laid hands on one recently and it exceeded my expectations.
Thanks Frogstar, I'll keep my eyes peeled...
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  #34  
Old 06-17-2017, 07:55 AM
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Originally Posted by Mick's Goat Whiskey Picks View Post
I've started dabbling back into mandolin recently and I really do enjoy the instrument. I'd like to find a resource of easy movable chords to get me up and playing songs quicker...l
Try these. Seriously as a mandolin player the best advice I can give you is

1. Start playing with others right away
2. Get acquainted with mandolincafe.
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  #35  
Old 06-17-2017, 01:18 PM
posternutbag posternutbag is offline
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Originally Posted by DesolationAngel View Post
Sarah Jarosz was my first introduction to an octave mandolin... she plays one capo'd up on Build Me From Bones and I love the sound of it. On the other hand I'm not often a fan of a regular mandolin. Each to their own, I guess?
Yep, to each his own. I am big fan of Sarah Jarosz, but not huge fan of that particular tune.

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Originally Posted by Mandobart View Post
Try these. Seriously as a mandolin player the best advice I can give you is

1. Start playing with others right away
2. Get acquainted with mandolincafe.
Very good advice.

On the subject of beginner/not terribly expensive mandolins, I have been playing an Eastman 515 all day. When I pulled it off the wall at my local music store, it was actually set up pretty well, but had the bright, glassy tone I associate with all Eastman mandolins. But once I put a set of heavier strings on it (J75s), it really popped. It doesn't sound as good as my Ellis, but for a sub $1k F5 style, it is very hard to beat; it is at least as good as most Kentucky KM 1500s. But that is the thing about Eastman that is frustrating. You play some, and they sound pretty good, others, not so much. And the quality of the tone tends to be independent of the model number. This 515 sounds as good or better than many of the higher end Eastmans I have played. Which all leads me to wonder how much of what we think of as the bright Eastman tone has to do with sub-optimal string selection.
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  #36  
Old 07-05-2017, 01:51 PM
markd markd is offline
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Originally Posted by fatt-dad View Post
"On the journey to excellence, enjoy mediocrity."

f-d
I love it! Wayne Charvel (of Charvel Guitars) once asked me when I was giving up playing guitar. I said I hoped to play for many years. He said, "Then just relax; learn a new chord form or technique every month and keep going".
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  #37  
Old 07-06-2017, 11:26 AM
Br1ck Br1ck is offline
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I got the mandolin bug a little over a year ago. I have a few observations.

What do you want to play? Celtic, old timey, jazz? Many go for an oval hole mandolin. Bluegrass? Most tend toward f hole styles. All such rules can be broken.

A setup is way more important on mandolin than guitar. That is why you should buy from a mandolin store. Several have been mentioned. Buying used can be a really good thing, but budget for a setup, including a fret level.

Kentucky, Eastman, and The Loar are the three brands that most view as best in the lower cost price range. I personally would spend at least what a Kentucky KM 150 costs, and that is a mandolin you can use as your camper when, not if, you upgrade.

To me, IMHO, once you get to KM 150 or Eastman 305 level, you won't see a significant sound and playability increase until you get to the 900 and above master built Kentuckys.

Save and move up to the $1500 used A style when the time comes. That is where things get really interesting.

Double your budget for a scroll.

The precision it takes to play a mandolin will greatly improve your guitar flatpicking. Start by doubling the thickness of your guitar pick. Start from the git go picking in the sweet spot, which is at the end of the fingerboard, or over the Florida if your mando has one. If it does, have it scooped for pick clearance.

Get a metronome and use it.

Mandolessons.com is a free or donation site that will get you going. Good pay sites are Peghead Nation, and Mandolins Heal the World, among others. Lots of YouTube videos too.

Don't freak out when you try a G chop chord for the first time. Remember your first barre chord?
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Last edited by Br1ck; 07-06-2017 at 11:32 AM.
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  #38  
Old 10-12-2017, 08:05 AM
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Originally Posted by HHP View Post
Recently got back into mandolin after a long absence. Seems there have been a number of posts of people thinking of adding mandolin to their arsenal so thought I might share some observations.

1. Get the best instrument you can possibly afford. Most people would logically get a good , low cost instrument to see how it goes. When I started back in, I got the best mandolin I ever owned and it makes a world of difference in terms of tone and playability. You can get a top notch A-style starting around $1500 used.

2. The pick is more important on mandolin than guitar. On a guitar, the pick determines a lot of the tonal properties of your sound. On a mandolin, it determines if you can play it at all. Start at 1mm and then move up till you find what you like. Good, inexpensive starting point is a 2.5mm Dunlop Primetone.

3.You can't "muscle" a mandolin. The double strings might lead you to try and clamp down with your left hand, but, in fact, you need a lighter touch. The hand position and neck geometry will greatly limit speed and fluidity if too much force is used.

4. Much harder to get good tone out of a mandolin. If your right and left hand technique is not clean, mandolins can make some ugly noises to let you know you're doing it wrong.Guitars just want to please you, mandolins don't give a rat's rear for your self-esteem.

5.The good news. It is ridiculously easy to find melodies on a mandolin due to its tuning in fifths. Learning tunes where you have the melody in your head come quite easily. You can learn a lot of tunes in a short time. More good news is that there are all sorts of chord voicings available to you all over the neck and they lay our conveniently. You could just about back most bands with a half dozen chords that only require use of two fingers.

6. Most techniques translate well from guitar to mandolin. One exception, and its a big one, is tremolo. It is difficult to achieve smoothness so plan on lots of practice of this one technique. Oddly, some related techniques such as picked triplets used so much in Irish tunes, come much more easily.

Absolutely agree. Should be carved in stone.
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  #39  
Old 10-12-2017, 10:20 AM
Mandobart Mandobart is offline
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Originally Posted by murrmac123 View Post
Nice mandolin ! ... I doubt I will ever aspire to learning to play mandolin, but if I ever did , it would be with an F model like that .

I could no more contemplate owning an A mandolin than I could owning a zero fret guitar.
Ha ha. Like most of us you fall for the scroll. I have a hybrid F4, F5, F4 octave mando and F4 custom 10 string 26" mandocello. Three of these also have zero frets. I guess my A4 10 string mandola with a zero fret would send you into coniptions.

Seriously, mandolin and mandolin-family instruments are my main musical passion for the past 10 years. Everybody plays guitar, some play well. I'm the only person playing out in my area with a mandocello. That alone has landed me gigs. The audience sees something they've never before seen or heard, so they don't have any preconceived ideas of what I'm supposed to play or sound like. Its a blank check for their attention. If I show up with a guitar somebody's going to expect "Wonderwall."

As said before, a mandolin is NOT a small guitar. A mandolin is NOT an upsidedown guitar. A mandolin is NOT an 'ukulele.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DesolationAngel View Post
Anyone have any thoughts about the difficulties one might face being a guitarist who wanted to go to a lower register mando instead of a regular mandolin? Octave mandolin or mandocello? I love, love, love the sound of the lower register and wouldn't mind investigating...
The only difficulty will be learning to play mandocello or octave mandolin. Because they are tuned in fifths, chord construction and scale development are far easier than guitar. Because they are tuned in fifths the stretches are greater than on a guitar. You can't get by not using your fretting hand pinky. Everything I play on guitar sounds way better on my mandocello - chords, solos, fingerpicking, etc.
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  #40  
Old 10-16-2017, 12:14 PM
Jim_G Jim_G is offline
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There's no accounting for taste. I prefer the look of an f-hole A. Maybe it's because two of my favorite mandolin players - Tim O'Brien and Joe Walsh - both play A's. Or maybe it's because I only have one foot in bluegrass and the other in Hiatt and Zeppelin rock. I wouldn't say no to an F, but I'm certainly not paying an extra 2K for the same tone. You'll find a few who think the scroll does affect the tone, but that's bollocks to me.
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  #41  
Old 10-17-2017, 02:59 PM
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Great advice here and I'll throw in the Eastman 505 as one of the best sub-1k mandolins to get started with. I also found the John Pearse/Thomastik Infeld mandolin strings to not only have great tone but also a really nice feel especially for a new player.
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  #42  
Old 10-18-2017, 06:23 AM
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There is so much good advice in this thread. I would like to add one for the mando lovers here. There's a podcast by a mandolin player, Bradley Laird, that I've been enjoying. Brad also has lots of great instructional material both free & paid. I've bought his courses in the past which have helped me greatly. I have no affiliation other than being a fan.

http://www.bradleylaird.com/podcast/index.html
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  #43  
Old 10-20-2017, 09:25 PM
darylcrisp darylcrisp is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Br1ck View Post
I got the mandolin bug a little over a year ago. I have a few observations.

What do you want to play? Celtic, old timey, jazz? Many go for an oval hole mandolin. Bluegrass? Most tend toward f hole styles. All such rules can be broken.

A setup is way more important on mandolin than guitar. That is why you should buy from a mandolin store. Several have been mentioned. Buying used can be a really good thing, but budget for a setup, including a fret level.

Kentucky, Eastman, and The Loar are the three brands that most view as best in the lower cost price range. I personally would spend at least what a Kentucky KM 150 costs, and that is a mandolin you can use as your camper when, not if, you upgrade.

To me, IMHO, once you get to KM 150 or Eastman 305 level, you won't see a significant sound and playability increase until you get to the 900 and above master built Kentuckys.

Save and move up to the $1500 used A style when the time comes. That is where things get really interesting.

Double your budget for a scroll.

The precision it takes to play a mandolin will greatly improve your guitar flatpicking. Start by doubling the thickness of your guitar pick. Start from the git go picking in the sweet spot, which is at the end of the fingerboard, or over the Florida if your mando has one. If it does, have it scooped for pick clearance.

Get a metronome and use it.

Mandolessons.com is a free or donation site that will get you going. Good pay sites are Peghead Nation, and Mandolins Heal the World, among others. Lots of YouTube videos too.

Don't freak out when you try a G chop chord for the first time. Remember your first barre chord?
some excellent advice all around for folks wanting to venture into mandolin and octave mando. i'll second everything above. TheMandolinstore is an excellent place to get a mandolin-new or used. These folks know mandolin, and know guitars, so they can transfer and know what and why of the questions a guitar player is asking.

if you do drop into mandolin, and if it does get ahold of you, expect your guitars to collect dust for a while. and expect to sell one or more to move up the foodchain in mandolins. mandolin is extremely life altering and addictive.

A recent Girouard OM, 20" scale, with a 100 year old cedar top. Sounds amazing, easy as any guitar I own to play(I keep low easy action for fingerstyle on my guits), and a haunting amazing tone. Love love this OM. Picked it up used. Got a soundclip somewhere, i'll try to find it and post it.
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