Open G

Hi all--

First post here. Though I have to admit i've been lurking for a couple of days...

Probably not a GREAT first post, BUT... i'm wondering. I have to pick up a couple songs on the mandolin pretty quickly for a show i'm going to be in. I've been playing the banjo for about two months now, and have played guitar for years, and i'm thinking...

would it be possible for me to retune a mandolin to open G and play using chords I already know from that tuning?

Would I need a different set of string gauges than normally on a mando?

Thanks for any advice you guys can give! Hope to be around this forum a lot more in the future!

I would strongly suggest that you learn the open mandolin chord equivalents. It won't be that hard if you have played guitar for years. The open G on a mandolin will be different from open G on a banjo anyway. Instead of DGBD (excluding the 5th string) you'd have GDBD, tuning the A up to B and dropping the E to D, so your fingerings will be different anyway.

... And BGDg (low to high) :grin:

I would encourage you to start by learning the two fingered mandolin chords.

That will most likely be close to half the chords you need, and many of the rest can be made with three fingers.

From there, simply work on the remainder of the chords needed for your particular set list.

Do yourself a favor from the outset: don't seek to learn to play the mandolin in open G tuning. Learn and play it in its regular tuning. If you can learn guitar in its regular tuning and 5-string banjo in its regular (open G) tuning, you can certainly learn to play a mandolin tuned to GDAE! And if you do, there will be a wealth of resources available to help you learn. Not so much with open G -- I don't know anyone who does that on a mandolin. A bit of extra effort early on will pay huge dividends later. Don't try to turn the mandolin into a banjo: it's not.

Looking at the OP date and the number of OP's posts, I doubt if all your advice is even being read.