Forgive the piling on, but banjo is very big in Irish music. It's usually not the same type of banjo though; a tenor banjo for Irish vs. 5-string for Bluegrass. Once in a while you'll see a 5-string...
Type: Posts; User: foldedpath
Forgive the piling on, but banjo is very big in Irish music. It's usually not the same type of banjo though; a tenor banjo for Irish vs. 5-string for Bluegrass. Once in a while you'll see a 5-string...
In my former life when I was playing gigs, I used the first version of the Peterson Strobostomp tuner and it worked fine. This was with a signal fed from a DPA 4099 clip-on mic run through a wireless...
You're not alone. I never go there because I found my "keeper" the first time out buying a mandolin after doing a ton of research, and being fortunate enough to have a budget for a good handmade...
@Sue: Another aspect of this is picking the right group to play with, assuming you have a choice. If you're not ready for the speed the fiddlers are playing, is there another jam or session you can...
The advice above is good, just a few more thoughts here. As a preamble, I'll note that fiddlers have a technical advantage over our flatpicked instruments, because they can slur a run of notes. I...
The "last forever" part is something I consider a drawback, at least with respect to intonation. The tone does seem to last forever because the strings don't lose brightness the way PB roundwounds...
Thomastik Stark gauge flatwound strings have wound A strings.
Expensive, but everyone should try Thomastik strings at least once. They didn't work for me because I need a brighter "cut" in the...
I did it to my mandolin because I like the feel under my hand, and I like the aesthetics, the way it's similar to a violin neck. My Lebeda mandolin is not a well-known name, and I plan to keep it...
I tried it, briefly, on my octave mandolin. Didn't like it. I mostly play Irish/Scottish melody lines on my OM ("fiddle tunes"), and hearing the octave jump within the melody line was too...
I tend to think of it as a "let's pander to guitar players who want to try a mandolin" trend, so if there are more showing up in the market then there must be more guitar players taking up mandolin....
If I've learned one thing in the time I've spent here, there are certain subjects where there is no "right" choice and it just comes down to personal preference once you've been playing mandolin long...
Good point; the sound of your mandolin in a group like that isn't the same as when you're practicing at home, and I think it can help to train yourself to hear the difference.
When you're playing...
I'm in the "tone comes from your right hand" camp. It pays to be constantly aware of what you're doing, and not get complacent and lazy about your picking.
When I'm in the middle of an...
When I play some of the slower Irish/Scottish tunes, an adjacent string pair may still ring out a little and clash with the following notes. It's more of an issue on the octave mandolin with longer...
At one time I had a small collection of metal-body roundneck Dobro guitars from the 1930's where they used a "trapeze" tailpiece similar to that one, and it was common to see them broken. Just a poor...
People are at different stages of development as musicians, so the focus will naturally be different for everyone. I'm at a point with mandolin (and flute) where I'm pretty happy with my technique,...
I think the main issue in transitioning from guitar is the shorter scale and stiffer feel of the strings. You're not used to sliding in smaller increments, and it may take a little more pressure to...
This might show some of the potential, although the video quality is poor. The first bit is Zenkl playing the Breedlove 4-string mandola on a slower tune with something akin to a guitar fingerstyle...
As others have said, one issue is volume, but another is the double course strings and the way that interacts with fingernails or bare fingers. There is only one acoustic mandolin family instrument...
Very nice playing!
Although I can't help noticing that she left out the fourth part of the Monaghan Jig on that Mandolin Monday's clip, which is common in most settings. I play that tune on flute...
I remember one quote from, I think, his early instructional DVD where he looked so young on the cover. He said (paraphrasing) that you should try to figure out where the important phrases are in a...
Looking through my (now much reduced) instrument collection, all high quality stuff, I think the only one that might be sold for more than I paid for it is an eight-keyed "Irish" flute. And that's...
Reverence for the wood is a fine thing. One reason I've never looked for another mandolin after buying my first one, is that the luthier -- Jiri Lebeda in the Czech Republic -- used Redwood from the...
I'll second Adrian's comment about E strings being basically the same from the various brands, so I wouldn't be looking there for a fix. The differences are in the wound strings.
You said your...
I owned a Breedlove "Zenkl model" mandola for a few years, designed for fingerstyle playing with four strings. I bought it because I thought I might play a bit of jazz on it, but fell down the...