Is bass the anti-mandolin?

[B. T. Walker]

I bought an acoustic bass guitar recently for a couple of reasons, good or bad. #I didn't want to lug around an upright or buy an amp to plug in an electric since everything else I have is unplugged.

Anyway, it didn't take long to catch that E-A-D-G is G-D-A-E backwards. #Then, the G maj arpeggio is really just an lefty open G-chord played righty. #Now I'm catching myself playing bass lines on the mandolin when I'm noodling long with the radio. #

It seems like such a logical crossover instrument for mandolin players. #I can't believe how easy it seems to be, though I don't have any illusions about how hard it would be to master. #

Has anyone else out there had similar observations? #Is it really this easy? #Weren't mandobasses tuned the same way?

[jmcgann]

if you can think that way, good on ya! I converted to mando from guitar, but never 'thought upside down', maybe I should have my brain rewired!

[Martin Jonas]

Not necessarily surprising: arguably, an acoustic bass guitar is a member of the mandolin family rather than the guitar family. The difference between the bass guitar and the mandobass is really only one of scale length, mandobasses tending to be longer (but with enough variability to allow for some overlap) and of body shape which is irrelevant to playing. Other than that, they're both (usually) round-hole flattop fretted instruments with the same tuning and the same number of strings and considerably more similar to each other than a bowlback mandolin is to an F5.

Martin

[kww]

A mandobass was tuned EADG, not GDAE? Any references on that?

[Martin Jonas]

See here (and lots of other references).

Martin

[kww]

I guess that I completely miss the point, then. I can see a mandobass tuned like a mandolin so that it makes the transition from mandolin to bass easier. What's the point of making yet another four string instrument tuned like any other four string bass? I wouldn't think the body shape would make that much of a difference.

[Martin Jonas]

Well, no-one else saw the point either, which is why you don't see many mandobasses around these days. Even full mandolin orchestras are much more likely to use a plucked double bass for that register, as of course do bluegrass bands. Neither the mandobass nor the acoustic bass guitar are seen as terribly successful instruments, as their scale length is simply too short for their pitch. The electric bass overcomes this by amplification. As an aside, there are also fretted instruments with the body shape and scale length of the double bass -- they use such things in Croatian folk music.

Martin

[Jacob]

According to the D'Addario string catalog, the scale length of a mandobass is about the same as that of a double bass, 42 inches.

[B. T. Walker]

Doing a little research, I read that all basses are tuned in perfect fourths because the reaches were too long when tuned in fifths. #That makes sense. #Also read that mandobasses just didn't have the volume, and so faded away as people turned to the double bass. #Lack of volume seems to be the main complaint with acoustic bass guitars as well. #

Interesting argument that acoustic bass guitars are "mandolin family". I like it.

A quick Google search of mandobass images shows quite a variety. #The Gibson J-style looked pretty cool, but so did the Edsel. #

[kww]

My favorite is still this contrabass, available

here:

[Martin Jonas]

According to the D'Addario string catalog, the scale length of a mandobass is about the same as that of a double bass, 42 inches.

If you check the encyclopedia page I linked above, you'll see a scale length from 706mm (28 in) to 1066mm (42 in) for the mandobass, so anything from an acoustic bass guitar to a double bass.

Martin