Getting started

[Bret Roberts]

Well, I finally got my first mandolin. It's a Epiphone mm-30
and tho I know it's not up to par with some that you all have, I could not believe how pretty it was coming out of the box. Now for my question, I have been try to learn some of the choards and the scales before I move on to songs, but when I go up and down the c scale, when ever I move my finger from one position to the next I seem to get a weied note in between the notes I'm playing. how can I learn to get a clean note ?? I don't know if it matters but I had to put new strings on (martins) cause I broke one that came on it when I tryed to tune it the first time.

Thanking you in advance

[grandmainger]

Hey B-MAN!

Nice to hear you're starting up, I started myself 3 months ago on an MM-20, which was very nice also http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

The mandolin strings a substantially more difficult to fret than anything else I'v tried, because they're so tense. Even if you have callus from guitar-playing, you'll need to work a bit more to get a clean sound.

If you still can't get a nice clean sound, look at the fretboard closely when you press on a low fret, say fret 2 and check that the fretted string is not touching fret 3. If it does, it will vibrate and produce a nasty sound.

[Rroyd]

Are you picking up one finger before placing the next one down? If so, this is possibly the cause of your unwanted notes, as you could be getting kind of a "pull-off" effect. A common problem for beginners is the timing between the two hands, and
picking the note with it properly fretted. Often one hand gets ahead of the other, and the note is picked before it is cleanly fretted, or the note is unfretted too soon, which could give you the pull-off sound. Add fingers when you are working on the scales, and see if that helps. In other words, leave the first finger down while putting the second finger down, and have the first finger already down when lifting the second finger, and so on, and see if that cures the problem. If so, then just slow down a little and work on getting the fingering and the picking in sync, then gradually increase speed as you develop control of that coordination between the two hands.

[Bret Roberts]

Thank you both for you knowledge,will try to watch for both when playing.

[softshell]

Sometimes if you are not careful you can end up bending one string slightly and causing it to sound out of tune with the other, just make sure to pick up and put down your fingers cleanly and evenly and it should eliminate that.