a question for those of you with far more mandolin experience than I. We have a few songs in our list that the singer requires a capo on the mandolin ....prefers to sing it in a key, play it in another key's shape.
Aside from the perceived shunning of "real mandolin players don't use capos", neither he nor I like using a capo on the mando for multiple reasons that only have to do with playing.
I am not the primary mandolin player. The primary player has a beautiful Gibson Mando. I have a very nice The Loar (LM 600 VS). We were discussing tuning my mandolin up a whole step so that when we got to the songs that would normally require a capo, we'd have a mando in that tuning.
Has anyone ever done this? I'm worried about the strings breaking, the tension on the neck, the strings being too tight to play well. We definitely want to try this as long as it won't damage the mando.
Ed