Fingerstyle mandolin/is there a fiddlers gene?

[Jonas A]

Don't know if there's something like fiddle/mando gene. When I was like 8 years old my musicteacher suggested my parents that I should pick up the fiddle, that I had a real talent for music. Which I refused - I wanted to play the drums. But since we couldn't afford a drumset but had a battered old guitar, I turned to the guitar after a year playing drums. On this instrument I've built myself a pro career for three decades, being an internationally touring and recording artist on the alternative rockscene.

Last year (or exactly 53 weeks ago) I picked up a Collings MT and to tell you the truth - there haven't been many days this past year that I haven't played the Collings for hrs on.

No tutors, no chordbooks, no teachers nor fellow mandoplayers to learn from. Still, today I can play stuff on the mando I've dreamed of all my life to be able to play on the guitar but never mastered. I play early jazz, blues, jazzstandards, spirituals, chorals, rockmusic, christmas carols, waltzes, folkmusic - anything that comes to my mind. If in G and in slow or mid tempo, I can learn to play it within a few hrs.

I'm utterly amazed. The fingers moves naturally on the fingerboard. Floats. Basslines, chordprogressions, melodylines - it all comes so easy.

Just one "problem" - I play my Collings fingerstyle. Like it is a guitar or a banjo. I pick the melodies, the chords, the basslines and it works just fine.

But I feel a bit stranded as I cannot find any other fingertyleplaying mandoplayers to learn from or get inspired by. No books, no videos, no nothing.

Still, I find it hard to believe I'm the only one playing mando this way in this whole wide world. Would be great to hook up with others, to play with and learn from.

And is there a fiddlers gene? a logical explanation to why some instruments are more accessable, comes more natural, than others?

And is my mandoplaying just a warm-up before I pick up the fiddle, turning homebound back to where God maybe wanted me to get started some 45 years ago?

Questions and no answers. Would really appreciate your comments and thoughts on these matters. #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[bradeinhorn]

have any recordings?

[PseudoCelt]

There was a recent thread (http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=12;t=42281;hl=genetics) on the biological basis of musical ability. It was an interesting discussion, but no real conclusions were reached.

Here's a link (http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=25;t=42931;hl=fingerstyle) to another recent thread about fingerpicking mandolin. I mostly flatpick, but I have played a bit of fingerstyle mandolin. IMO, I think it suits mandola and bouzouki better, where the strings have a bit more give and more sustain. I wear thumb/fingerpicks, using modified banjo rolls.

You might want to check out Radim Zenkl, who is well-known for his fingerstyle mandolin.

Patrick

[fiddle5]

Fiddle playing is generally learned in positions, much like many other instruments. However an instrument that is tuned in fifths, such as mandolin, violin, viola, ect has fingershapes and patterns. These finger shapes are sequences and patterns that work in any position. Some individuals intuatively pick up on this early and advance very quickly because of it. A fiddle gene?? who knows? http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif

I wouldn't give up any instruments, you'll probably find that they all enhance each other, especially the mando/fiddle combonation. The ability to play multiple instruments and multiple styles will make a very knowledgable and worldly player.

[Tim2723]

I don't know about genes, but I share your insight on certain instruments being 'right' for certain people. #I started out in a fortunate way. #As a boy my school had a good selection of instruments and I got the chance to try just about anything I could imagine. #All the horns, all the winds, a complete family of violins. #You name it, I tried it. #My teacher let me take as many instruments home for the summer as I could carry. #I discovered the mandolin at about age 15. #There was just something about it that was natural and 'right' for me. #I play all the chords on the giutar and was even a church organist for a few years (hey, they'll take anybody!). #I play mandolin, banjo, flute, and whistle for a living and enjoy a dozen others at home. #But if I had to spend the rest of my life on a desserted island with only one instrument, it would be the mandolin.

I've always sincerely believed that everyone has some instrument that they can play, and that so many folks miss out on playing just because they never got a chance to find the right one. #If I could, I'd gather up all those dusty instruments sitting in attics and make a gaint lending library of musical instruments so that kids could try them all. #Just because a child isn't a great violinist doesn't mean he's not a great trumpeter, or saxophonist, or whatever.

[MikeEdgerton]

When you find "your instrument" you find it. I played guitar for 40 years before taking up the mandolin on October 31st, 2005. It has become my primary instrument. I went the route of taking lessons (at 55 years old). I admire the fact that you have developed your own unique style and that shouldn't bother you. If Bill Monroe had played the mandolin like everyone else played before him I doubt he would have become what he did. There is nothing wrong with innovation. With that said, expect some sideways glances if you ever step into a circle at a bluegrass jam. When the rest of the mandolin player ask you how the heck you're doing that you'll know you arrived.

[kirkw101]

on gypsy mandolins web site he has a dude finger picking, also the guy at folk of the wood fingerpicks, not sure if any instruction is out there though.

I have played guitar for 8 yrs and I just picked up the mandolin, I find it more natural and easier to play. just me.
kirk

[Eric F.]

To amplify on what kirkw101 said, if you go to www.folkofthewood.com and look at the video samplers, quite a number of them are of Mickey fingerpicking. There's no attempt at instruction, and a lot of it seems to be kinda noodling, but you might pick up something useful.

[Klaus Wutscher]

Don´t know about the genes- I always felt that particular instruments require specific sets of skills and therefore, some instruments will lend themselves better to certain people.

F.e. the ability to hear intonation perfectly is much more important for a fiddler than for a pianist (the latter just calls up his piano tuner...), whereas a (classical)pianist should have an ability to play as much as 4 seperate voices at the same time.

I always thought that the most important talents for a bass players are a sense of groove and a lack of ego (which in itself is an important musical skill) Easy? Seems so, but precious few have it....

[olgraypat]

There is a well-known mandolin finger picker, whose name eludes me at the moment. Someone will probably chime in who is familiar. Or a search will likely proved enlightening. I don't believe he is American, but I may be wrong. I think it's likely that the mandolin came easy because, as has been pointed out above, of the symmetry of the fretboard. You don't have that darned B string to contend with. Being a fingerpicker on guitar and banjo, I started out trying to do the same on mandolin, but the size of the instrument basically discouraged me. It took a while to get used to a pick. But, could you share a little about your method of playing? For example do you use finger picks? I may revert.

[cooper4205]

is it Radim Zenkl you are think of Pat?

[olgraypat]

I believe that's the one. Should have known a newspaperman would have the answer.

[allenhopkins]

Re: genetics -- I have my paternal grandfather's mandolin books. I have a picture of my maternal grandmother playing her mandolin. My first mandolins were a Gibson A-1 and a B&J Victoria bowl-back that I found in my maternal grandfather's attic. Neither of my parents played mandolin (my mom played violin as a teenager), but there obviously were mandos around the family.

Given that history, mandolin should have come easier than it did, don't ya think? Playing for 35 years, and still feeling like a "learner."

[Jonas A]

No finger-picks. I even fingerpick my tin-axe ('31 National Triolian resonatorguitar w 0.15 on top) when I play bottleneck.

I'm just a learner trying to make some sense why mandoplaying (fingerpicking) comes so easy to me. I guess some of the answer lies in adopting fingerstyletechniques from the guitar (and banjo) and transforming it to the mando. Playing a lot in open tunings may also have paved way mentally. Could well be that the scalepattern with an instrument tuned in fifths fits me a bit better than the guitar (even in open tuning).

Then again (a longshot but maybe not): coming from the theatre where a guy was playing the arabic oud-lute, I found it quite easy to "groove" in a similar manner on the mando. This is what I refer to as the strumming B-thumb (the banjo-thumb). The akonting (which became the banjo in the US) and the oud bare several resemblances (atleast to a non-scholar like me) as for playing. And the oud relates to the mediterranian mando aswell as the guitar. By saying this, I assume there are likeness in playing and "patternthinking" making oud, mando, banjo and guitars different offsprings from basically the same strummed instrument.

My technique (as undeveloped and inmature as it is) either uses the B-thumb for strumming grooves and using the other fingers for chords or melodies; Or I play it more like a fingerstyleguitar with a "pianobassline" counterplaying the melodyline or dominant chords. I'm not a scholar so I find it a bit difficult to describe the technique in a more coherent way. I guess jazzstandards like Ain't Mishavin' is more performed like the mando was a jazzguitar (Joe Pass, Wes Montgomery), whereas early jazzstandards like Basin Street Blues is mainly blues with a walking bass etc.

By strumming the open or fretted G-string, one enhance the danceable groove. It will not be as loud as shredding bluegrass, more soft and laidback like old-time banjo without resonatorback.

And I guess with a few years of practise and amplified public playing, it may well be a mando-technique that will find public acceptance. Before the PA-system, singers had to sing at the top of their voices. With microphones, singers like Bing Crosby could develop an almost whispering, crooning technique that would have been impossible before that.

This topic is mainly because it would be interesting, inspiring and supportive to hook up with other mandoplayers fooling around with bare fingerpicking. And I'm still looking for a logical answer why the mando comes so easy to me. Could well be that an instrument tuned in fifths is more "primitive" and more easily understood and learned, compared to more developed and academic way of tuning instruments like "standard" tuning on a guitar (btw, the standard tuning have never ever been the original standard tuning of the guitar). Could well be that I relate to music and musicplaying in a more emotional, primitive and less academic way than trained musicians. A backporch, groovin' by the bbq kind of musician rather than a Sam Bush-Brilliance-shredding-mandoplayer. I'd love to do those quick runs, but I'm quite content with kicking back, downing a cold one and picking standards.

Mando is roots and what music is all about. Gods gift to celebrate life.

[farmerjones]

i had to read the first top of the thread again. You've had thrity years of musical foundation being laid prior. You don't need genes when you got experience. I was a relatively late comer(40)to the fiddle & mandolin too. A light came on. An instrument tuned in fifth gave me scales i could deal with. If i can have a scale i can pull a melody out of it. To the point where i still tune a guitar open G and hop over the B string to get a G scale. But that didn't come until after got my mits on a fiddle and a mandolin. If you get the yen to bend notes infinately, pick up a fiddle and bow and amaze yourself with them too.

[Jonas A]

Probably true. My mandoplaying have helped my guitarplaying a lot. I approach the guitar differently today. Maybe the initial two questions are just two sides of the same coin and answered by the same answer: an instrument tuned in fifths means easier access to scales which means more rapid results and hence the feeling of an instrument that comes easy.

And could be that instruments tuned in fifths are more "genuine" than even open tunings.

My experience is that the fiddle/mandotuning works the best in G (Major and Minor) and my experience of traditional scandinavian folkmusic (from 16th and 17th Century) is that most of the tunes are in G (actually jumping inbetween Major and Minor in the same tune). I would also assume that Open G is the "original" open tuning and adopted from the banjo. And the banjotuning stems from african folklore in G.

Could be that G actually was the first proper tuning.

[Givson]

Kenny Hall plays old-timey fingerstyle mandolin with fingerpicks, using a bowlback mandolin on his lap (like a Dobro).

[EdSherry]

Givson -- The few times I've seen him, Kenny plays his bowlback more vertically (the bowl resting on his knee, the neck sticking up) rather than flat across his lap "like a Dobro." #Also, he plays with his thumbnail (using it like a flatpick), not with with fingerpicks.

[Jonas A]

Just found this clip of Radim Zenkl:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=l63FWu8d-rQ&mode=related&search=

This is basically the same technique but I use it for all different kind of styles (even mando bottleneck). Still, it's good to know we're atleast two about bare fingerpicking mando - one master and one learner. And even if I'm just a beginner at this, I can demonstrate my technique and repertoire on YouTube-clips if anyone is interested. Not to brag but to share the fun and versatility of mandoplaying.

Anyone who knows if there are concert- or tutorial dvd's/video's available with Radim Zenkl?

[Alex Orr]

A few weeks back, I was listening to Fred Bartenstein's excellent show, [I]Banks Of The Ohio[I] on bluegrasscountry.org. He a had a recording of some Stanley Brothers' studio outtake (I think it was an outtake) in which either Carter or Ralph were playing fingerstyle mandolin on a version of East Virginia Blues. It was pretty impressive.

[Jonas A]

Got to check that out. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[cooper4205]

that version of East Virginia Blues is on the An Evening Long Ago (http://www.amazon.com/Evening-Long-Ago-Live-1956/dp/B0001MDPBI) CD.

[Jonas A]

Have just listened to East Virginia Blues and that's one of the ways how I fingerpick the mandolin. First time I dared to play mando in a public jam (actually only a few weeks after I first picked up the mando), I tried to play a "bluegrass"-version of Amazing Grace on a banjolin I borrowed from a flatpicking bluesmandoplayer working with bluesartist Eric Bibb. Yes, I got some weired but curious looks. The fingerpicking enhanced the "banjo-sound" and made the song sound even more like "banjosong". And I had to demonstrate how I played it as fingerpicking mando/banjolin is a rare commodity (never seen or heard anyoneelse play like this before). And I assume that I simply adopted whatever relevant technique I could apply, when playing the instrument. Being a banjolin, I guess it promoted a banjo-way of playing, a sort of rolling banjotechnique. I didn't intend to play in public, I was more curious with the banjolin. But as the rolls started to come and I rapidly found the notes in Amazing Grace, it all came together at the spur of the moment. Nothing planned. And I guess I started to develop the fingerpicking just by trying to repeat on my MT what I'd done earlier that evening on the banjolin.

Another interesting thing is that I heard Rhiannon Giddens (of Carolina Chocolate Drops) perform a hispanic (I assume) song called A La Una Yo Naci this morning, just to realise that I've been fingerpicking the same kind of melodic structures on the mando without even knowing there's a genre.

The mando has me travelling the world of music and I love it.