Magical 5ths

[Huda]

I'm a recent convert from the 4ths tuning of the guitar to the 5ths tuning of the mandolin.

Can anyone explain in plain English (not music theory jargon) why tuning in 5ths is so intuitive and just makes so much plain old sense to the fingers?

[glauber]

Interesting. It never seemed that intuitive to me; the main advantage for me over the guitar was the fact that they're all the same interval, while the guitar is in fourths with a third thrown in. Stanley Jordan, by the way, tunes his guitar all in fourths (or at least he used to).

[Ted Eschliman]

I'll take a stab at it, although not mentioning theory for me is like being forced to type with one hand...

First if by "4ths" you really mean coming from a guitar, the benefit of the mandolin is it's consistent; the guitar inserts that awkward 3rd between the G and B string.

Another other thing is you can cover an octave (oops, that's theory, forget I said that...). You can do a whole scale on just two strings. With 4ths, you'd need three.

The biggest thing is how easy, how intuitive to play patterns up and down the fretboard, simply by moving the starting (of the pattern) note up or down a string or up or down a fret. You have different notes, but the same relationship between the notes.

This won't be apparent when you include the open string, though. If you stick with scales that use the closed (fingered) positions, a light bulb may come on for you. 8th fret on your G string is Eb. It's also the 1st fret on your D string. This means any scale or pattern you play that starts with Eb can be played in either of those two parts of the fretboard.

Does this help?

[stevem]

Since Mandohack isn't tooting his own horn, allow me...

Check out his site here (http://www.jazzmando.com/) for likely the BEST way to learn mando scales. His exercises require work, but they turned a mando slouch like me into...well, I'm still no good. But I'm a much better and happier slouch than I used to be...
http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Dale Ludewig]

Oh, I'll gladly toot Ted's horn. The basic position he deals with just says it all as far as scales go. After that, it's all variations, starting at different notes in the scale, basically. Oops, theory again- modes.

Seriously, I don't know why the 5th's tuning is so natural, but it is. Although if you've played guitar a long time, it can take a little bit of time to push that next course up to the proper frequency. But once it's there, you know it's right. Like I said, I don't know why.

[ShaneJ]

For me, the "intuitive" deal is a result (mainly) of two things:

1. A complete scale can be played on 2 strings in any one position
2. The distance between frets is MUCH shorter, so you can reach 7 frets at a time.

Fretboard "patterns" are moveable and repeatable on a guitar too. They just take up more fretboard real estate on the guitar.