Mandolin (Page 4 of 4)

bubba55, I can sympathize with your multi-instrumental woes. I (try to) play dobro and bouzouki as well. It can be confusing in jam sessions. When following the guitar player I make mistakes by trying to play a similar shaped chord on the mando instead of translating the guitar shape to the chord name. You might like trying the octave mandolin or cittern if you want more real estate on your fret board. They're usually somewhere between the mando and guitar in length. The bouzouki is fun with its 12 string-like pairings of strings. I use the same tuning as a mando. Somethings are easier to play on it, somethings harder. The neck is about the length of bluegrass banjo.  For me the hardest thing is holding my arm out in left field for so long.

If someone thinks big hands is a contradiction to playing mando, I encourage them to check out Mike Marshall.  That dude has cartoonishly large mits, and he's one of the best players in the world.

What do you mean by "tuned to the key of D"?  What are the individual strings tuned to?

An old post revived but an interesting one for me. I have been playing on a mando for about 18 months or so and absolutely love it.
I seriously doubt that I will live long enough to master the little devil but I know I will have a lot of fun trying.
There seems to be some good mando websites mentioned in earlier posts on this topic and I will have a closer look at them when time allows.
I laugh at myself when I look at my huge hands on the mando neck, just doesn't look right. Maybe this is my problem, I can't take learning this instrument seriously enough to ever be any good at it, but for me, trying is enjoying.
By the way Trisch, welcome to Chordie and thanks for reviving this old post.

All the best
Bushy

Hello all, just got myself a mandolin a few days ago, haven't played any instrument since I was a kid and tried learning violin only for it to sound like the cat was being strangled. After only a few hours practice I can play the G, C and D chords and have found some songs that can be played with only these, but would like to find more that I can play that I know. Have also been trying out simple versions of heart of gold and wish you were here, e minor chord seems very difficult to me as I don't know how to bridge my fingers properly (I think that's what my boyfreind says the problem is, could be wrong) My other half plays guitar and I thought would be fun to find some things we can play together. He tried to teach me some guitar but my small hands found it hard to reach the chords... Any ideas for easy/basic stuff that I could learn, and I'll let him play the more complicated stuff on the guitar for now. Any help gratefully appreciated I am a complete beginner but so far already loving my mandolin, and vaguely sounding like I can play some music for the first time ever...