Does playing Mandolin Help in learning to play the fiddle?

[UsuallyPickin]

Well ..... Yes .... you know where , about , all the notes are and how the scales are laid out and understanding of chord structure and chord progressions help with double stops and playing the changes....... so all the theory is there and the ear training you have a good start on is there also .....and no ... getting the music out of the fiddle, between the bow and it's fretless condition is a labor of love and not a project for the impatient. R/

[lflngpicker]

I began as a boy on the violin for a few years and that gave me the ability to learn scales note locations on a mandolin more easily. The locations, though without frets, are the same spacing, if my memory serves. It is true that drawing the bow was an entirely different skill than picking and strumming techniques. There is definitely a crossover, but I am coming from the violin and guitar to the mandolin.

[Petrus]

I think I find the bowed instrument more versatile than the plucked one. The violin (and similar instruments in the family) can be plucked as well as bowed; you can bow short or long, sustaining or clipping notes, etc.; there is less freedom with a purely plucked/strummed instrument like a mando or guitar. Especially a mando, which has very little sustain to begin with. But each serves a purpose in its own right. Good excuse to always have several of each handy!

[mando on the side]

I started on the violin when I was 6 yrs old, played classically, and still do. I'm 30 some years old now, and have been playing mandolin on and off about 7 years. After all these years of violin, I am finding that the mandolin is helping me develop a better sense of rhythm and articulation (still have way more room to improve though!). It also forced me to be more precise in the timing of my fingers on the violin fingerboard due to the precision that is required on the mandolin to get a good tone and legato.

In turn, the violin helped me develop a smoother legato on the mandolin since it had way less sustain. It made me listen for the entirety of each note just as one has to think about the attack, sustain and end of each note on the violin.

Shaping a phrase is easier with a bow and sounds more obvious... And trying to be expressive on the mandolin forced me to really listen for dynamic and tambre changes (for example playing near the bridge or over the fingerboard, or playing on the side of the bow versus using a flat bow, or playing with different pick angles or grip looseness versus firmness); point is that playing different instruments helped me to listen with more sensitivity.

The mandolin also helped me think about chords and fingerings more easily when I play the violin. Finding a good finding especially across the fingerboard comes more naturally to me now.

I'm a firm believer that being a multi - instrumentalist makes for a better musician!

[catmandu2]

I think I find the bowed instrument more versatile than the plucked one. The violin (and similar instruments in the family) can be plucked as well as bowed; you can bow short or long, sustaining or clipping notes, etc.; there is less freedom with a purely plucked/strummed instrument like a mando or guitar. Especially a mando, which has very little sustain to begin with. But each serves a purpose in its own right. Good excuse to always have several of each handy!

I'm certainly biased (as woodwinds were my first serious study): I feel that everyone should study a wind instrument or bowed instrument (and/or sing)--the benefit of which in the pursuit of music and musicianship is superlative. The study of "natural" melodic (i.e., voice-emulating) instruments should inform and instruct the fretted-stringed (percussive) instrument player too. I have found this empirically in my experience. All multi-instrument study informs others, but when one studies the winds and strings--especially--insights abound

I'm a firm believer that being a multi - instrumentalist makes for a better musician!

[LongBlackVeil]

want to bring up this thread because i now have first hand experience with this.

I havent been playing the mandolin long but i think im able to play quite well, as far as i can play many tunes and add ornamentations to them. Improvising is something i havent gotten good at but... anyway before i played mandolin about a year ago i tried to pickup the fiddle. It was a miserable failure, i didnt know where the notes were or what they were supposed to sound like. I had been playing guitar for a long time but that seemed to be absolutely no help.

Now fast forward i decided to give the fiddle another shot after learning the mandolin, this time i bought a tad bit nicer fiddle but more importantly a much better bow.

Now ive been playing for 1 week and i am able to play quite a few tunes and it does actually sound like music, my intonation isnt horrible, and more importantly im really having fun with it. So i can quite easily say YES mandolin helps immensely with fiddle. I now have an ear for this tuning and what the notes and tunes should sound like

Here are some recordings ive made, its not great but remember, like i said ive been playing for one week. Im really proud of the progress ive made. and friends and family are suprised by how un-horrible it sounds

https://soundcloud.com/user715050806...o-lisdoonvarna

Thats road to lisdoonvarna there is also swallow tail jig and red haired boy on that page.

[Caleb]

I've been playing mando for 8 yrs and still cannot do one thing on the fiddle, and I've tried several times. YMMV.

[wsugai]

I don't know about helping out on the fiddle, but my mando playing has propelled my guitar playing something fierce. I've temporarily gone back to the guitar as my primary instrument, it's like that.

[Folkmusician.com]

I believe mandolin experience helps a great deal with kickstarting your fiddle playing. All of the scales apply and you have a good repertoire of tunes so you don't have to work on learning/memorizing songs right off the bat. Going fretless is not as difficult as it seems. Now bowing is 10x harder than you would think it is and even with the mandolin experience, it takes some work to sound presentable on a fiddle, let alone good. I would say that a good mandolin player can put in 100 hours or so on a fiddle and "start" to sound ok on simple tunes.

[Caleb]

I get the fingering, etc. but I could never get the hang of holding the violin under my chin and looking down the instrument at my left hand. It's the most awkward position imaginable to me and I don't understand how anyone does it. I've even tried resting it on my chest like some Old Time players: still nothing. It's not meant to be for me, and that's okay. I love my mandolin.

[LongBlackVeil]

I get the fingering, etc. but I could never get the hang of holding the violin under my chin and looking down the instrument at my left hand. It's the most awkward position imaginable to me and I don't understand how anyone does it. I've even tried resting it on my chest like some Old Time players: still nothing. It's not meant to be for me, and that's okay. I love my mandolin.

Maybe you need a better shoulder rest. There are some that practically hold the fiddle for you

[SincereCorgi]

I think knowing mandolin helps.... sorta? All you really get to take from mandolin to fiddle is a knowledge of where all the notes ought to be on the neck. The problem is that without frets, the way you get to those notes is so different that it doesn't help much at first. After a few years, though, you start to see some benefits since you can start transferring your mandolin repertoire very easily once your violin technique is finally settling into place. Personally, I think violin has benefited my mandolin playing more than the other way around.

[Caleb]

Maybe you need a better shoulder rest. There are some that practically hold the fiddle for you

My wife has a very nice violin (thanks to Stephen Perry at Gianna's) with a nice chin rest. I just can't make it work. She can though!

[Richard58]

My main instrument is fiddle that I'v been on for ver thirty years. I can play all the other instruments in a bluegrass band good enough to play in front of a crowd without running them off but for one. That's the dobro .....I never could figure that thing out. I'v owned two long enough to press my nerves to the point of selling them. That's my hard instrument to play, I guess it's that bar weight or something that doesn't work for me.

[Barry Wilson]

I look at my fiddle hanging here on the wall and shake my head. I am going to take lessons this winter. Teaching myself the bow technique is foreign to me. And I agree with Caleb holding the instrument up there feels wierd. And being a guitar player we bend up and down for vibrato.... this side to side fingertip roll is another odd one to me... all my fingertips have hard flat callous from mandolin

[tburcham]

I started on fiddle. Great instrument and what I learned there has helped me play more proficiently on mandolin. My personal adage about fiddles is this "there are 10 sounds that come out of a fiddle, 9 of them are bad!" If you are one of those that can make that 10% sound good, congratulations. It is a difficult instrument to lay well.

[David Lewis]

Bowing is not picking. Fingering is not fretting. Shoulders are not chests. Otherwise identical.

[JeffD]

Bowing is not picking. Fingering is not fretting. Shoulders are not chests. Otherwise identical.

Well said.

I would add also that Kickstarted is not the same as well On Our Way.

[journeybear]

Mostly, playing mandolin helps in keeping one from playing banjo. More or less ...

[lorrainehornig]

All I know is my daughter plays fiddle...but when I try to play it sounds like a sick cat. On the flip side, she can't play my mandolin either. She tucked my mandolin under her chin one time and she said, "Now that makes sense".

[journeybear]

Ha! She actually might be a bit more clued in than she knows ...

[High Lonesome Valley]

In yon days like, maybe 300 years ago or so, classical violin players were not allowed to start on violin until they had mastered the mandolin.

I just could never turn the dang thing around as that requires being able to chew cum and walk at the same time, so I've built several "lap" violins.

[RickPick]

Like PCF, I took up fiddle about 3 years ago, then started on mandolin about 1 1/2 years later. I find the pairing a delight. I often learn new tunes on the mandolin and once familiar with the tune, try it out on the fiddle. I play Irish trad on both instruments, so I'm always working with the melody, not chords. Slides and triplets work great on both -- crossbowing not so much. When I tire of playing the fiddle after an hour or two, instead of going in the kitchen and making a pastrami sandwich, I usually just pick up the mandolin for a bit of picking. And when I'm in a fiddle slump, the mandolin carries me through. I have played guitar for years, but find it just stays in the case because the mandolin and fiddle are enough mistresses for one life. Although my fiddle skills would probably be better if I spent ALL my musical time with the single instrument, I can't imagine not playing both now.

[catmandu2]

In yon days like, maybe 300 years ago or so, classical violin players were not allowed to start on violin until they had mastered the mandolin.

Of course this all may be a lot of hooey, but-

I like when folks say, times were...

Well, times were when maybe "musician" may have meant something a little different (back then--when we didn't have every convenience, particularly youtube, and all manner of recording, electronic this and that and opportunity to broadcast and express one's playing...when things were learned much by pupil, mentor, paper, method...probably everyone sang, didn't they? and danced?...probably many were multi-instrumental--when the piano and the harp and not the television were the primary front-room appliances...ah the days). I wonder what dimension my kids will live in?

Was listening to an elder talk tonight--during the depression, schools and families taught music and valued playing (in the home, etc) and really valued the instrument, etc...

[journeybear]

I recall reading that back then musicians - orchestra members - were reviled, considered of ill repute, having low moral character, given to drunkenness and debauchery, and barely able to even play their instruments. In fact, they were often considered useless unless someone had put some sheet music in front of them. Fortunately, some of that has changed since then.

PS: HLV - There is a typo in your post you ought to correct so as not to give people the wrong impression ...