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  #16  
Old 01-13-2015, 10:11 AM
Finger Stylish Finger Stylish is offline
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Many mandolin players are also fiddle players or visa versa. The transition from one to the other is rather sensible because of the similarities in size, tuning.
Smaller is better on mandolin because of the extreme finger spread on some 4 finger chords.
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  #17  
Old 01-13-2015, 05:26 PM
Steve DeRosa Steve DeRosa is offline
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Default WHY are Mandolin necks so narrow?

To annoy the crap out of all those guys on the General forum who insist that 1-3/4"+ is the be-all-end-all in guitar necks...
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  #18  
Old 01-13-2015, 10:55 PM
Twilo123 Twilo123 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by philjs View Post
My guess is that it's as wide as it needs to be, no more and no less. Before you think this is facetious, think about the issues: the pairs of strings need to be far enough apart to not hit each other and buzz when hit hard YET they need to be close enough together that the player can fret both strings easily. Further, courses have to be far enough apart that the player doesn't fret two courses easily! The balance between intra- and inter- course distances is a fine line...and depends on string gauges as well as hand size.

I have a bouzar (a 23" scale tenor guitar with 4 courses of unison strings, ie. it masquerades as an Irish bouzouki, tuned GDAD or similar) that has a 1.47" nut width. I'm discussing a larger, lower tuned instrument (will be 25.5" scale and be tuned CGDG or DAEA or similar) with my luthier now and we're looking at a 1.58" to 1.61" nut width due to the needed string gauges. For some insight into the issues, try looking up "mandocello string spacing" on Mandolin Cafe. There you'll find a bunch of people who have Eastman mandocellos that all have a common complaint: the courses are too far apart.

Some mandolin builders DO build with wider necks (1.1875 to 1.25") including Breedlove, Weber and Mid-Missouri (now Big Muddy), to name a few.

Phil
I think it's more complicated than that. For instance I have a cuatro and it has more spacing than my guitars (nevermind mandolin) and people play it with no problem all the time. In fact people would complain the opposite if they were closer.
I am definitely no luthier but I would think it is a combo of scale length, nut width, width at the body, neck depth at the nut, and fingerboard radius among others.


Last edited by Twilo123; 01-13-2015 at 11:08 PM.
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  #19  
Old 01-13-2015, 11:51 PM
posternutbag posternutbag is offline
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As someone who is principally a mandolinist, I often wonder why guitar necks are so impossibly wide. 1 11/16", that is just ridiculous.

In all seriousness, those above posters who mentioned the different hand position are spot on. When I watch guitar players, they seem to me to grab onto a guitar neck like it is a baseball bat, wrapping their thumb over the top to fret the E string.

A mandolin lays in the V created by your thumb and index finger. This, as has been pointed out, allows you to push straight down on frets like you would finger a violin. This is an important distinction because it gives you the precision needed to make microtonal adjustments on a violin or hit the very small sweet spot of a mandolin.

Personally, I only look at mandolins with a 1 1/8" nut width. To me, the 1 3/16" nuts make your fingers lay across the strings, rather than push straight down, and this leads to poor intonation and tone.
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  #20  
Old 02-09-2015, 03:31 AM
KarGuitar KarGuitar is offline
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I play 1-1/8th but prefer 1-1/16th nut widths. You need the narrow neck to reach some 4 finger chop cords and to fret 2 sets of string pairs with a single finger tip. At 1-3/16th you feel a big difference and you already start to loose it. If you play mandolin like a mandolin, you see the advantage. If you try to play it like a little guitar, you've got problems that come up pretty quickly. It's really more like a violin. The instrument and left hand are not held the same as a guitar, and the string pairs are much harder to fret. Both are unique instruments with some overlap of technique. But mandolins are narrow for a reason. They are not held the same way. The chords are very different also.
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  #21  
Old 02-09-2015, 05:44 AM
Silly Moustache Silly Moustache is offline
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mmm, just measured my Lebeda F5 Premium - 1 & 3/16" with a very deep V profile.

Mr Bob has a Weber Fern which I find very skinny.

I refer wider necks on guitars and mandos. Simply more wiggle room.
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  #22  
Old 02-09-2015, 09:39 AM
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Originally Posted by kydave View Post
Look at violins. People of ALL sizes have been playing those tiny neck things for centuries.
I do believe the answer lies with the violin. It shares the tuning and geographic origin. It's quite literally a small mandola, just as the violin is a small viola. We all think bluegrass, but it's a European lute from the 1700 and 1800s. The name is italian. And it doesn't have 8 strings, it has 4 doubled courses.

I'm always amazed at how generous the string spacing is at the bridge.

If you think of it in those terms the neck spacing made all the sense in the world then.
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  #23  
Old 02-09-2015, 01:15 PM
KarGuitar KarGuitar is offline
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I look at those people with monsterous hands that are awesome mandolin players, and what they can do with the those big hands on that instrument (Mike Marshall and his 15 fret finger span). I started on Mando, so when I picked up guitar later, it felt like holding a 2x4, and I was amazed that people could play so fast, so well, on such a huge neck. Many use the 1-3/16s and a few bigger, I tried it. I was uncomfortable and limiting for me personally.
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  #24  
Old 02-09-2015, 04:22 PM
Doubleneck Doubleneck is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa View Post
To annoy the crap out of all those guys on the General forum who insist that 1-3/4"+ is the be-all-end-all in guitar necks...
I thought the same thing. Few see the disadvantages of wide necks.
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  #25  
Old 02-10-2015, 08:17 PM
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Different instrument but same principle......

I got hold of a sweet little Martin soprano uke, and like the OP and his mandolin, thought I'd never be able to navigate that little neck. I was wrong.

After a few weeks of playing it, and not giving up, it's getting much easier. For me it's been a matter of being more precise in my finger placement.

It just takes time to train the left hand.
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  #26  
Old 02-14-2015, 02:37 AM
Wade Hampton Wade Hampton is offline
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Yep, it's just a different instrument with its own techniques and a different musical role to play.

I prefer traditional spacing on my mandolin necks and 1 3/4" at the nut on my guitars. My baritone guitar has a nut spacing of 1 7/8", though it really doesn't feel a bit like the Martin 00-21 with a 1 7/8" nut spacing I used to own, probably because the low B string on it is so much bigger and takes up more space.

This isn't a criticism, just an observation, but I've seen a lot of guitarists come to mandolin and try to treat it as though it's a little bitty guitar. Which it's not. Perhaps since I started learning mandolin a good year or two before I ever took up guitar, I've never tried to make mandolin fit into that guitar-centric role.


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  #27  
Old 03-09-2015, 07:28 AM
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before I became a Luteist switching string spacing took a little adjustment but now because I play so many fretted instruments during the week it does not bother me.. who knows maybe just changing how I thought of my self did it . I use to consider my self a bass player.. now I am a luteist a player of all fretted instruments. well and a average congalaro and a hobbyist violin player.
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  #28  
Old 03-09-2015, 11:07 AM
Rudy4 Rudy4 is offline
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Mandolin was developed as an offshoot of the viol family, so the instrument was primarily designed as a fretted version of the violin, hence the naming convention with mandola, mandocello, and mandobass also representing the viol family of instruments.

Violins were never designed to play anything more than double-stopped harmony notes on adjacent strings, due to the mechanics of the radiused string path and straight bow, so it's a no-brainer that if marketing concerns weren't what they were when mandolin was developed that the practical thing to do would have been to re-design the instrument with wider spacing to accomodate multi-note chord formation.

The wheels of change turn slowly, and tradition plays a huge part in restricting the development of wider string spacing. Yes, it's easier in a few instances to bridge a finger across closely spaced adjacent strings, but ask yourself how often this is an issue in real life. It's more of an attempt to justify a narrow neck IMHO.

I believe the desire for a wider neck is the main reason why so many folks are gravitating toward instruments such as octave mandolin.

ALL mandolins aren't narrow, though:

http://www.bluestemstrings.com/pageMando.html
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  #29  
Old 03-09-2015, 11:22 AM
Silly Moustache Silly Moustache is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Silly Moustache View Post
mmm, just measured my Lebeda F5 Premium - 1 & 3/16" with a very deep V profile.

Mr Bob has a Weber Fern which I find very skinny.

I refer wider necks on guitars and mandos. Simply more wiggle room.
I have just measured my mando nut again, not realising that I'd already contributed - a month ago! - AND last Wednesday I had to play bob's Weber Fern again, exactly the same impression.

I believe that some Collings can be ordered with a 1 & 3/16" nut.
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  #30  
Old 03-09-2015, 03:35 PM
BadLiver BadLiver is offline
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Originally Posted by svea View Post
Being a guitarist who got into mandolin late in life, I may be able to shed a little light on why mandolin necks are what they are. The common nut width for a Gibson or a Collings mandolin is about 1 1/8". Collings considers 1 3/16" to be a wide nut. I bought the wide nut version thinking that since I was coming from guitar playing, it would be easier. Well, actually that is not exactly true. While I find that the Collings with the wide nut works just fine for most tunes, there are some fingerings and chords that would actually benefit from being able to span two string courses with one finger. So, in hindsight I probably would have just gotten the standard nut version had I known that. It's not really that big of a deal, though.

Also, the way you grasp a mandolin neck is similar to how you would grasp a violin. The pad of the thumb should rest along one edge, and there is a different angle of the fingers than with grasping a guitar neck. Mike Marshall's hands are huge and he does fine. But ultimately what works for others may not work for you, and I don't know of any stock mandolins with really wide necks.

Svea

Svea


This is absolutely, utterly right. I am a guitarist who came to mandolins much later. Get out of your mind that you will be playing it like a guitar, because you won't. It's different from the word go -- even what goes on in your head is different.

Like the PP, I ordered my first serious mando with a 1-3/16" nut, and now I wish I'd just stuck with the narrower version. About 1-1/8" would be ideal.

One thing that I think you will have fun with is that it doesn't take too long to become somewhat proficient and make it sound really good. All the scales repeat predictably around the fretboard. Still, it will make your jaw hit the ground that that thing in your hand is all David Grisman's using to get allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll that music out of!!!

(Btw, I figure that I will finally get a showy F model if and when I actually get good. Until then, I have an A that sounds amazing and looks a tiny bit poverty-stricken ... which I really like.)
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