Chop chord sustain

[BiscoMando]

okay, me and my guitar player are in this debate over how i hold my chop chords. I like to at least hear the chord, a little tiny bit. and i mean, only a VERY little bit. He's telling me it sounds better when I just rest my fingers on the strings and don't even let the strings touch the frets. I think it sounds alright, but there's no chord if the strings don't touch the frets! I feel like I'm missing something without at least hearing that little bit of chord. But then I listen to some adam steffey and he's not really making chord sounds either. What do you folks do with your chop chords in a strictly bluegrass setting?

[Jim Broyles]

You hold the strings against the frets and immediately lift them after you chop the chord. Otherwise it makes no difference where you put your fretting hand.

[BiscoMando]

that's what i usually do. i mean, i know how to make a chord ring for a very brief amount of time, that's no problem. what i'm saying is that as I started holding my fingers down shorter and shorter until eventually i wasnt ever actually touching the frets with the strings, my guitar player said it sounded best when i didn't put my fingers down at all and just touched them to the strings in the form of a chord. listen to adam steffey's rhythm to get what i'm talking about.

I then tried to prove that if I did that, it wouldn't matter if I played chords at all (like you said). I had him turn around and I chopped the muted strings with my fingers in chord formations and then strumming with no chord formation, just fingers accross the strings, and he could tell when I was playing a chord formation and when my hand was just covering the strings randomly. strange, no?

[Joel Spaulding]

I have been struggling/experimenting with this also. It seems that some chord shapes when not fretted will provide some chord-like qualities through the harmonics created. I don't play strictly bluegrass so it isn''t always an issue but I would be interested as to whether it really does matter in every song. Suppose it comes down to individual style and the requirements of the individual song. (?) #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[nashvillebill]

Seems to me if you aren't actually fretting the instrument, you aren't really playing it- you're just making percussion sounds. A chop should be percussive, but it should still be a chord.

[Jim Broyles]

Sounds like a personal preference difference of opinion. He likes the percussive chop with no chord sounding and you like to chop the chord. I'd say that you had to be playing the "chord" and the "random" a little differently. If you played a chord formation on different frets, I'd bet he couldn't tell the difference. Truth to tell, I always chop the chord unless I don't know the song and have to chop a non-chord due to ignorance of the correct chord.

[Crowder]

A lot of guys like to hear a little "Pfffft" and that's it. I think that sounds best when the song is really moving. It also depends on what the bass player is doing.

[pjlama]

I'd start critiquing your guitar player and see how he likes it. Of course there are times when either chop is appropriate.

[BiscoMando]

that's basically what we came down to: individual taste and the style of the song will dictate the chord sound (or lack thereof) produced by the player.

Crowder, what do you mean about the bass player? please elaborate.

pjlama, I said to him "well, i'm glad we're being so open. next time I see something I don't like about your playing, I'll be sure to let you know." but really I appreciate his honesty and i know he's just trying to make me try things i might not have thought about, so i like the criticism.

[pjlama]

As long as it's healthy criticism. We've all played with folks who focus on other people's playing rather than their own.

[Mr Piggery]

If he only wants to hear a "Pfffft", then tell him to get a drum a machine!

I like to hear the chord, no matter how up-tempo the song is.

[TomTyrrell]

The mandolin chop provides the same rhythmic contribution as a snare drum. The mandolin can also provide a harmonic contribution that a snare cannot provide.

If the guitarist is already playing a chord on the 2&4 beats he might not see any reason for the mandolin to also sound a chord.

[250sc]

2 schools of thought. 1. Chop where you hear the notes of the chord and 2. Chop where it is strictly percussion.

Just two different colors on your palet. Use them both. If you or your guitar player feel real strongly about one or the other in a specific part of a song you'll have to discuss it and find a compromise.

[Pete Martin]

Why don't you record the two of you playing, do both ways of chopping. See which each of you likes best. Also get feedback from other band mates.

Compare your chop sound to your favorite players. See if you might need to work some on your sound?

Best,

[UnityGain]

Chord Chops can tend to get real loud if your not careful, where muted chops can be more subdued. #Its possible to get a nicely toned chord chop at a lesser volume. #A solid chop chord can be just about the loudest thing a mandolin can do. #A guitar player I play with objected to my chopping once and I realized that I was just hitting too hard. #Once I started to work on the sublty he didn't mind at all. #Its possible that your guitar player just likes the subdued volume of the muted chop better. #Getting good control over your volume/tone in a chop is really important. #Work on variables such as where you hit the strings -- near the brigde or up around the fretboard. #Pick angle. #Amount of "dig" into the strings. #chopping closer to the bridge with a quick, limp wrist, water flicking motion can sometimes give you a bit more percussive tone but still some note definition. #And playing over the end of your fretboard can give you a real mellow tone but isnt quite as percussive. #And varying between them can really help to spice up the rythum.

Of course, this may or may not apply to your situation.

[Jim Broyles]

I'm not in a band, although I have been in the past, but never as a mandolin player. When I am playing at our regular jam, we all use dynamics to allow other players to be heard on breaks. It is typical at our jam that the guitars are very hard to hear when playing solo so what I do for guitar breaks is strum open chords or chop very softly until the next instrument takes over. I do not believe that the only roles for the mandolin in bluegrass are chopping or breaking. If you listen to earlier Bill Monroe, he played a lot of strumming. The song which comes readily to mind is "Mighty Dark to Travel" - nary a chop from the mandolin in that one. Nobody will give you any trouble if you drop out altogether at times to allow others to be heard.

[TNFrank]

The mandolin chop provides the same rhythmic contribution as a snare drum. The mandolin can also provide a harmonic contribution that a snare cannot provide.

If the guitarist is already playing a chord on the 2&4 beats he might not see any reason for the mandolin to also sound a chord.
This is what I read the last couple days while researching the Mandoin in my learning process. The bass is the bass drum and the mandolin is the snare drum, that's why we play the off beat and the bass plays the beat so we'll get the "boom, chick, boom, chick" sound. Still, like has been said, if you can't at least hear a little of the chord you might as well get a drum machine.
I think you should develope your own personal style while using the music you listen to as only a template to help you find the way YOU want to play.

[Crowder]

Crowder, what do you mean about the bass player? #please elaborate.
Some bass players who are new to bluegrass will let their 1&3 notes ring out a little more than what works best. For mid- and uptempo tunes, you really want the "boom/chick" of the bass note and the mando chop to be distinct from each other and have their own space. That means they both need to be rather clipped.

I disagree with the opinion that a chordless chop is akin to a drum machine. For one, nobody has timing as good as a drum machine, so nothing to worry about there. More seriously, the prototypical "modern" chop a la Steffey and others is clipped and chordless. The players usually move their left hand to fret the right chords for the tune, but I think that is often done so that any note that slips through the damping won't clash (could also be to prevent boredom for all I know). It doesn't sound anything like a drum machine to my ears.

[TNFrank]

I've been listening to a lot of Bluegrass in prep for getting my mando and I've heard songs where the chords ring through, where they're cut short and where they're totally mutted like a snare drum, I guess it depends on the song for the most part.

[mandolirius]

<I've been listening to a lot of Bluegrass in prep for getting my mando and I've heard songs where the chords ring through, where they're cut short and where they're totally mutted like a snare drum, I guess it depends on the song for the most part.>


That's it. A good mandolin player will use the whole tonal spectrum from hitting all eight strings and letting them ring out to an almost atonal, heavily muted thwack. It really depends on what you're trying to do rhythmically. Sam Bush comes to mind as a mandolin player who really exploits all the rhythmic possibilities of the instrument.

[Richard Russell]

It's easy to think that the mandolin has to be played hard and loud to be heard. Often times, these instruments project better than we think, so that just the muted chording or even the fretted chop played lightly can produce a sound that everyone hears well. A good instrument and well trained hands can do a lot, even without playing real hard.

[earthsave]

It depends on the song; it depends on what the rest of the band is doing; it depends on how you feel, depends on what you like, depends on what you want your chop to sound like, depends....

My observation is a lot of the younger players in bands that are playing on-stage at festivals use the dry percussive chop more than say your traditional or older pickers. Also, on a fast song/tune the chop will get more dry and percussive. Sometimes on a slow waltz a dry quick percussive chop fits. It depends.

[Chip Booth]

Suppose it comes down to individual style and the requirements of the individual song. (?) #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

Agreed, but for myself I like to hear the chord most of the time. #I often use an alternating pattern of a sustained chord followed by a quicker, more percussive chop. #"Ching Chop, Ching Chop..." #And I like both vanilla and chocolate, preferably in the same bowl!

Chip