Violin to Mandolin...

**Santiago** · Apr-02-2006, 12:19pm

So I've had my Eastman 605 for about a month, and I'm love with it, but what suprises me is just how much of the violin lessons I had as a kid are suddenly relevant! I studied violin for 12 years under serious classical teachers (as my dad shelled out for private lessons), but I haven't picked up my violin in 20 years. When I tried fairly recently my fingers couldn't remember where to go and I was very frustrated -- like those years of guitar erased my memory. Imagine my surprise when I picked up my mandolin for the first time, and I was doing all kinds of runs and concertos from memory. Granted, it'll take few years to play a good tremolo, and it'll take forever to learn the nuance that makes mando such a special instrument. But, the more forgiving nature of the fretted neck is doing wonders for me as I shake the ice off my fingers, and they start again to react to all that violin knowledge. I wish I did this 20 years ago -- though I'm very thankful for my years playing guitar. Cool!

**Lee** · Apr-03-2006, 5:08pm

Hey Santiago,
I did the same thing as you. My biggest frustration is that some realy good mandolin sheet music is in tablature only. Argh!
Mickey Cochran's Crosspicking book is great, but reading the tab is so,... so,.... barbaric.

**Santiago** · Apr-04-2006, 1:16pm

I'm used to tab from guitar playing. I just consider that I read sheet music an added bonus. I've also been stealing a bunch of classical runs and ideas that translate well to mandolin and the bluegrass/country idom. JB Accolay's concerto in A Minor has a big flourish of doublestops at the end that always sounded like country fiddling to me, and now I'm learning it on Mandolin. Just changing the strict bowing to chords and passing tones, and it seems pretty cool. I have others but I have to save some tricks for myself. Reading music is always a plus to me. Learning tab won't be half as hard, though I find music notation lets me recognize sooner which finger to use.

**Lee** · Apr-04-2006, 4:28pm

Also, unlike violin music, mandolin music rarely includes "bowing" symbols.

**Santiago** · Apr-04-2006, 8:10pm

Actually, I'm quite used to seeing upstroke and downstroke marks (same as upbow,downbow) in guitar music, so I'm surprised it's not used for mandolin as well.

**Lee** · Apr-05-2006, 11:42am

Uh, are we the only two violinist mandolin players here?

**JD Cowles** · Apr-05-2006, 12:07pm

There must be more Lee. I can tell you from personal experience it's much more painful going the other way. I can find notes pretty easily but what sort of monster invented the bow anyway? I need to practice out in the barn so as not to disturb anyone...

**Keltic Fiddler** · Apr-05-2006, 12:14pm

There is at least one other.

I started plaing violin at age 8, played mostly classical music. About 20 years ago I started playing Scottish and Irish fiddle, and still continue to do so.

About 5 years ago at a session, a friend of mine told me he had a mandolin but that he had never played it. He asked if I'd like to give it a try. I've been hooked ever since. Now I switch back and forth between fiddle and mandolin when playing with my band.

Last summer I bought myself a Mid Mo M-4. I love the deep tone of this mando for the Celtic tunes.

**seano** · Apr-05-2006, 1:19pm

Here's another mando player to fiddle. I too found it relativly easy to apply all the pickin' tunes I know to fiddle, but the hard part is that durn bow! Once I get warmed up and get a good tone going (takes at least an hour!), there is something almost magical and extremely gratifying about it. Maybe b/c it's so much more of a challenge (not that I'm some mandolin virtuoso or anything). Anyhow, the two instuments make for good "cross training".

**JGWoods** · Apr-05-2006, 1:23pm

Originally Posted by (Lee @ April 05 2006, 13:42)

Uh, are we the only two violinist mandolin players here?

Fiddler mandolinist here, though not much of a fiddler and I come to it via mandolin.

Odd that I played mandolin for several years by use of tab, but when I picked up the fiddle I went to notation which I recalled from the old days of trumpet, trombone, french horn etc.

**Santiago** · Apr-05-2006, 1:41pm

I would have thought that the hard part would be learning the fretless intonation. I though the bow -- a dangerous weapon in the hands of the inexperienced -- would be relatively easy to learn, though errors are quite costly to the rest of the family.

**Ted Eschliman** · Apr-05-2006, 2:01pm

Violin to mandolin makes perfect sense to me. Perfect fifths tuning (identical notes, even), Fiddle Tune literature as well as classical, what a great transition!
I came from a trombone background, a much more difficult adaptation, and after 8 years, I still haven't figured out what to do with no spit valve...

**Alex Fields** · Apr-05-2006, 2:06pm

I started playing violin/fiddle (both styles) in grade school (I'm a high school senior now). I picked up scottish fiddle a few years later and mostly focused on it for several years. I didn't start playing mandolin seriously until this past year, but it's now my primary instrument (I probably average around six hours a day of practice on just mando, and usually another hour or so on violin/viola), and is going to be my major (ETSU bluegrass program and/or Berklee) and presumably my career.

I much prefer picking. I was never any good at bowing: I can do rhythm bowing in the style of Driessen/Anger pretty well, and I can do alot of the scottish bowing stuff, but other than that I pretty much suck with a bow (I can never keep proper bow direction so I always get lost and out of time). I don't have very good intonation on violin either.

**PaulD** · Apr-05-2006, 2:12pm

Originally Posted by (mandohack @ April 05 2006, 13:01)

I still haven't figured out what to do with no spit valve...

I thought that's what the end-pin was for...

I also came to fiddling from mandolinning but I don't claim to be very good a either. I found the transition difficult due to the intonation and bowing. I didn't have any musical training as a kid and I think that makes a big difference regardless of the instrument. it's a great instrument. I worked from tablature early on, but I find I prefer standard notation.

Paul Doubek

**Santiago** · Apr-05-2006, 4:07pm

Keep practicing hard Alex, and keep playing with as many people as you can to learn from them but to develop your own unique voice. For me it's an intense hobby, but the opportunity to do something you love for a living is a great gift. Go for it!

**Jack Roberts** · Apr-05-2006, 4:35pm

Not deceptively easy, it IS easy. When I was in Japan I was told that the mandolin is an instrument given to secondary school students who didn't start violin in elementary school. The feeling is that if you don't start violin early enough, you will never be able to play it well, but anyone at any age can learn mandolin. We all won't be able to play like Sam Bush, but I play mandolin in public all the time, and I doubt I could ever do that with violin.

As for tab vs. notation, there is PLENTY of notation out there for mandolin. If you don't like tablature, you never have to look at it again in your life.

Anyway, welcome to the wonderful world of mandolin. One bit of warning: it's easier to misplace your pick than to misplace your bow!

Jack

**Alex Fields** · Apr-05-2006, 4:47pm

I have to disagree with the above post...I think it's much easier to impress someone ignorant of both with a fiddle than with a mandolin. It's much, much easier to play fast and get a clean sound. Yeah, the bow and intonation can be difficult, and so you'll sound horrid at first, but after you get to a decent level you stop sounding like a dying dog.

There are alot of good violinists and fiddle players. I can name dozens of virtuosos. There are probably thousands in the world good enough that they could play alongside any of your favorite bands and not look bad. There are very few mandolinists on that level. I think largely musicians just have lower standards for mandolinists and are more easily impressed, when it shouldn't be that way.

Eh...I'm not trying to say mandolin is harder (I'm not really sure what a statement like that would even mean, as the repertoire for an instrument is set by the difficulty of playing any given thing--I mean nobody would say it's easier to play a mandolin fast than a fiddle, but you have people saying mando's an easier instrument...), just that it's a mistake to assume it's at all easy or even just easier than fiddle/violin. I've played both instruments extensively and I can tell you that, even though I started fiddle without any musical training and then switched to mandolin, mandolin has not seemed easier to me. It is extremely difficult to master. Mandolin is in no way a cheaper fiddle or a cop out instrument.

**Santiago** · Apr-05-2006, 6:08pm

It's easy to PLAY mandolin, but to master it is another story. If they give it to secondary student's in Japan,it's their good fortune. Musicians such as Jake Shiba...(whatever it is, he's great) point to the fact that more "lute-like literature" is finding its way to the far east. Heck, my Eastman was made in China. A few years ago they would barely have heard of an archtop mando if at all-- much less make an impressive one. I'm sure you weren't dis'sing mando players on a mando site, but don't sell your skills short. People warm to the music. Flash is just the show. Ever notice that a mime playing an instrument is so good at selling what he's doing, yet for a musician who plays the instrument he's got it all wrong. Perception and reality.

**Jim Garber** · Apr-05-2006, 9:12pm

Originally Posted by (Lee @ April 03 2006, 18:08)

My biggest frustration is that some realy good mandolin sheet music is in tablature only. Argh!

Huh? What genre of music are you interested in? I have been playing classical and never read tab. Worse come to worse you can always read violin music.

Also, in real mandolin sheet music there are often direction symbols tho I often just work out the pick strategies myself based on the phrasing.

Jim

**mandroid** · Apr-05-2006, 10:10pm

Well the 4 string chord thing has to be a different skill set to learn , not many more than 2 strings can be bowed at once, right?
...though I have heard some intentionally slack bow sections,playing triads and such, but that was Avant Garde compositions for concert 1st chair violinists..

**Bertram Henze** · Apr-06-2006, 1:43am

Originally Posted by (mandroid @ April 05 2006, 23:10)

Well the 4 string chord thing has to be a different skill set to learn , not many more than 2 strings can be bowed at once, right?
...though I have heard some intentionally slack bow sections,playing triads and such, but that was Avant Garde compositions for concert 1st chair violinists..

...the main difficulty in playing 4-string chords on the violin lies not in playing 4 strings at a time - you just divide the chord into 3 2-string chords played sequentially (g-d, d-a, a-e), that's just common 1st chair violinist stuff; but what is really hard is the exact placing of so many fingers without the aid of frets - that is for soloists who never even sit down.

I never could do that in my nine childhood years of forced violin lessons - frankly, I hated the instrument, and never played it again. But when I discovered celtic folk music I thought about playing some instrument and bought a cheap mandolin, finding I could reuse the fingering learned during the terror time of violin. Since then, I have gone all the way via a not-so-cheap mandolin, tenor banjo, mandola to OM, glad to have found my own instrument class after all.

The lesson to be learned from this is to never confine a child's musical gift to a "correct" class of instruments (my parents, both being classical musicians, could never take an instrument seriously that was not found in a symphony orchestra). So I could understand my own daughter's disliking of the Steinway piano we inherited from my father. Instead, she chose to learn tenor saxophone, and she gets all the support I can give (I even envy the volume).

Bertram

**Jack Roberts** · Apr-06-2006, 9:33am

Like Bertram I had violin lessons as a child, but I wasn't forced for 9 years. I had to stop when I injured my left hand playing baseball. But I went on to piano. But even after all those years (I only started mandolin in my advanced years), learning mandolin was much easier than even guitar because the notation makes sense. I am not a great player: frankly, I stink. But I can noodle through moderate level violin music in just a few days, and in a few weeks I can get to where I can play it well enough to make me happy. My wife (a trained musician) thinks I'm o.k. and my wife's choir director made her group stop and listen while I was warming up with Bach once--prior to a country hoe-down. Maybe some truth to the statement that mandolin is unusual enough that even mediocre players get more attention than they deserve.

The original poster's view is my view also: mandolin is easy to learn if you already know the rudiments of music. The other points are well made, however: virtuosity is never easy and very few have been blessed with the genius of natural musicality. But many who have are right here on the mandolin cafe: I know, I've jammed with some of them.

FYI: Jake Shimabukuro. Not Japanese. He is an American from Hawaii who seems to be well trained in classical guitar AND posseses that elusive genius of natural musicality.

**Santiago** · Apr-06-2006, 12:57pm

I always thought Jake was from Japan. He is one impressive musician.

**Alex Fields** · Apr-06-2006, 3:25pm

It's really hard to play four finger chords on violin. I fingerpick my violin alot: I play triad accompaniment that way and it sounds really good (it's much easier to play in tune held like a mandolin than on shoulder with bow), soft and sweet sortof like a gently fingerpicked guitar. It doesn't hurt that my violin sounds ridiculously good (it's way better at being played than I am at playing it--I wish I had a mandolin that sounded as good).

Not trying to start an argument here, but once again in defense of mandolins, I don't think it's easy to play mandolin at all, not even basic stuff. It's hard to get good tone. It's not at all uncommon to hear a mandolinist who plays for a living and can't get good tone even on the simplest stuff: I'd say that's alot more common that to hear a mandolinist who actually does get good tone. I think people who say that mandolin is easy to play/learn just don't have the same standards for mandolin as they do for the instruments they would classify as more difficult (like violin).

**Jack Roberts** · Apr-06-2006, 3:52pm

Jake Shimabukuro (from his official website--in Japanese) : Born Honolulu, Hawaii, November 3, 1979...Started playing ukulele at the age of 4...Doesn't say he was trained in classical guitar--and incorrect assumption on my part, I suppose. Although he is a Japanese-American and he records on a Japanese label (Sony) and he is quite popular in Japan, he is an American.