dulcillini
Feb-22-2009, 8:47am
Good Morning Cafe'rs !
I was worried about spending time on my mandola, fearing it would mess up my playing on the mandolin. I hope that I am not imagining things, but it actually seems to have helped ! Is it because of the additional stretching on the mandola making my hands more flexible and better to navigate the mandolin ?
I almost did not order the mandola for fear that it would interfere with my study of the mandolin. I am relatively new to this family of instruments, coming from a mountain dulcimer background. I have not really "studied" the mandola yet, I am simply playing mandolin tabs and of course the songs end up in different key. The mandola is really a neat instrument. Because of the deeper box and heavier strings, the sound is different even when playing the same GDA strings that are on the mandolin. I have been doing some side by side comparisons.
What I have to do now is not be tempted to move to a octave mandolin or cittern ! I have a nice "herd" right now !.
One other thing to share. I tried Ted's JazzDola flatwound strings on my Bridger A mandola and they sound real nice. It took a couple of days for them to stretch out and settle down, but they really sound nice now. I find that the tuning is pretty stable, requiring little adjusting, with these strings. I also like the D'Addario J-72 mandola strings. Either kind is fine, but I think the "ring" and sustain is higher on the JazzDola set--or perhaps its my 62 year old ears ringing instead !!
Have a good day
Mike
I was worried about spending time on my mandola, fearing it would mess up my playing on the mandolin. I hope that I am not imagining things, but it actually seems to have helped ! Is it because of the additional stretching on the mandola making my hands more flexible and better to navigate the mandolin ?
I almost did not order the mandola for fear that it would interfere with my study of the mandolin. I am relatively new to this family of instruments, coming from a mountain dulcimer background. I have not really "studied" the mandola yet, I am simply playing mandolin tabs and of course the songs end up in different key. The mandola is really a neat instrument. Because of the deeper box and heavier strings, the sound is different even when playing the same GDA strings that are on the mandolin. I have been doing some side by side comparisons.
What I have to do now is not be tempted to move to a octave mandolin or cittern ! I have a nice "herd" right now !.
One other thing to share. I tried Ted's JazzDola flatwound strings on my Bridger A mandola and they sound real nice. It took a couple of days for them to stretch out and settle down, but they really sound nice now. I find that the tuning is pretty stable, requiring little adjusting, with these strings. I also like the D'Addario J-72 mandola strings. Either kind is fine, but I think the "ring" and sustain is higher on the JazzDola set--or perhaps its my 62 year old ears ringing instead !!
Have a good day
Mike