Even though I've had an OM for nearly 10 years, I still find myself struggling with regular mandolin chords on the longer (22.75") neck. But I'm still continually discovering "Wow, how did I miss that all these years?" variations that work on OM, but I would never have thought to try on regular mandolin.
One I ran across tonight was Am. I have never liked 2235, because it is hard on my wrist and that high A seems shrill to me. 5200 sounds better, but it can be hard to hit on the fly also. If I am up the neck, I will also do 5700, but if I am following chords on sheet music in church, I can miss it moving up the neck from first position in the blind. So I was messing around and came up with 2230, AECE. It is really easy to hit and I think it sounds every bit as good as 5200 and 5700, maybe better.
So, two questions:
- Do you have any good chord tricks like that on the OM that generally wouldn't be found on regular mandolin chord charts?
- Do you know of a good chord book or app for easy-to-play OM-specific chords, especially first position?
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