Re: Guitar vs Mandolin technique?
My perpetual gripe is that too many beginner-level books overlook the experience & mindset of guitarists (probably about 80% of all new mandolin players), suckering them into errors that the author(s) should have foreseen.
The differences that converting guitarists easily miss:
1 - One fret per finger on guitar vs. two frets per finger on mandolin. "1st position" on mandolin means that the index finger plays frets 1 & 2, middle finger frets 3 & 4, ring finger frets 5 & 6, pinky fret 7 & up. Yep, it works best that way!
2 - Angle of hand & wrist: Guitarist tend to reach across the fretboard, while mandolinists tend to extend & retract along the length of the fretboard; hand position is more angled, like a fiddlers. In reality, experienced guitarists and mandolinists change hand/wrist position as needed, but many have struggled needlessly at the beginning stage.
These would be SO easy for authors to state up front, yet so many newbies (we all were at some time) have struggled needlessly for a while.
- Ed
"Then one day we weren't as young as before
Our mistakes weren't quite so easy to undo
But by all those roads, my friend, we've travelled down
I'm a better man for just the knowin' of you."
- Ian Tyson
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