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I've been noodling around here and there with the e-mando I bought a few weeks back and have noticed that one of the things I have some real issues with is the way chords sound on the thing. Standard chord shapes like I play on my acoustic just don't sound as "musical" or appealing. I'm wondering if any experienced e-mando players have found that certain chords shapes that may not be used as much in traditional bluegrass/chop rhythm mandolin work better for emandos.
i use 2455X ,22555,42245.42235,22355,2355X,22335,22333. but i really seldom use 754233 ,52335,7452X. for open chords is use 02300,00230.20023 ,X0220,02200,22002
Diatonic harmonized melodic lines, and the 3 finger 'Jethro' chords.
Hi Alex; I'm not a very experienced e-mando player, but I'm happy to share some of the chord forms I think sound good on a 4 string e-mando:
* I Love the movable Power Chord form (a Legend of electric music!): 0-0-X-X = G, 2-2-X-X = A, etc.
* I also like the sound of this movable barre chord form:
A = 2-2-4-5
Am = 2-2-3-5
A7 = 2-2-4-3
* Also, for Blues, I just started using these movable 7th Chords (& their 2 note versions) which I really like (thank you Don Julin!):
G7 = 4-3-5-X (or 4-3-X-X)
C7 = 3-2-3-X (or 3-2-X-X)
* I also like this movable chord form: E = 1-2-2-X
Finally, in my opinion, one of the keys to making chords sound good on the e-mando is to keep the voicings as low (pitch-wise) as possible.
Hope this helps, I look forward to seeing the suggestions of others.
Cool voicing y'all, I look forward to playing around with them. Ed, I agree with your statement about keeping the pitch low. In some sense, it's actually counter to what you'd normally want out of an acoustic mando, wherein part of it's cvharm is the high, trebly, ringing sounds it might give in a setting of guitars.