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Not a palm "squeeze" - but parts of the palm contact the guitar neck when playing some of the Merle Travis chords, for instance. In my own playing, hand position changes more than a little all over...

Palm squeeze = bad idea, poor technique. Not a good idea on a mandolin. Or a fiddle. Or a guitar.

I had (still working at it too) a pretty bad habit of using my palm in certain situations, probably from a long-time familiarity with guitar necks. I found that on certain passages in some tunes I'd...

It is easier on the fingers to use the tip of one finger to barre two string. This assumes your fingers are wide enough to press two sets of strings. If your fingers aren't quite sausage sized, you...

When starting out, you may not have the strength to press all 4 strings in the 4-finger chop shape. Especially with the pinky. As Tobin said, you don't want palm squeeze to become a habit. I did...

Personally, I don't think it's ever a good idea to use a palm squeezing technique on the mandolin. That requires collapsing the wrist, bending it backwards. That is a recipe for injury down the...

Many players only use 3 note chords,including Jethro Burns. Doubling a note serves little useful purpose. Typically an e chord on those frets is 122, 3-1-5 intervals.

I never barre, find a way to get one finger to cover two courses (4 strings)
Barres are for guitars, and bars are for drinkin
Happy pickin

Me too. On mandolin there are 4 courses plenty close to each other on a short scale and four fretting fingers. I almost never barre on mandolin or mandola. On OM or mandocello I use a lot of...

+1 for Phil

jesserules' answer can work for people with tiny fingers, I've seen Nancy Blake do that way up the neck, no way I could do it even at the E chord you've mentioned; I play it just like...

I flatten the index finger most of the time, even covering 5 courses on occasion. The trick is indeed inverting, so that the knuckle bears on strings, not just flesh. That said, I also do the...

I use the index finger pad to cover both the A & D courses and then middle and ring fingers to get 4 & 1 courses. Index finger should be crossing the strings at a 45 degree angle.
Most of the time...

Hope this isn't too non-responsive, but I often find it easier & less stressful to use my fingertips and fret each string individually to play chords that could be played as barres. Can't always be...

I don't mute, I aim. As you pointed out in your second question, this translates better to partial chords/double-stops.

Don't try to miss it with your pick. Hit it but have it muted by fretting hand/fingers.

If you come from playing guitar your fingers tend to arch over the E strings with tips pointing back at...

I usually mute the unplayed E string with the fleshy side of the curling-around-the-neck index finger. But that was just my own, uhm, discovery, not from a teacher, or from a book that I can recall....