Mandolin Mute?

[Sherry Cadenhead]

Is there such a thing? If not, are there suggestions for practicing quietly?

[pops1]

If you tip your pick at a severe angle you can play extremely quiet. It also works for practicing tremolo. A rounded pick is even more effective. They do make felt picks, that would be quiet, but I don't think I would like the drag on the strings, but it could work.

[colorado_al]

Is there such a thing? If not, are there suggestions for practicing quietly?

Earplugs

[BrianWilliam]

An unplugged, electric mandolin

[Jess L.]

An unplugged, electric mandolin

Yup. Plug earphones into the amp, instead of using the amp's speakers. Fabulous practice instrument. A side-effect advantage of this is that with the earphones, you can hear yourself play really well, better than through the speaker(s) IMO.

(This assumes a solid-body instrument, of course, because strings attached to a solid slab of wood aren't going to be doing much ringing on their own. But if you have a hollow-body electric instrument, it's going to be louder. Recommend solid-body for quiet practice.)

Anecdotal evidence of the quietness of solidbody instruments:

I once tried living in an apartment building (the usual paper-thin walls) for a while. Of the three neighbors within earshot, one of them (the nearest one) was super quiet and I really appreciated that he never made any racket. He'd heard I was into some tech stuff so he asked me to come over and see about fixing his computer (an early model, before computers were a popular thing). I was surprised to see that his living room contained several electric guitars, a bunch of wires & cables running to a little home-type mixing board and recorder, etc. Turns out he was a rock guitarist in a band!

But literally *all* of his home practice was through headphones, and it also turned out that he often stayed up all night long to practice rock guitar for hours on end non-stop. I never heard one peep coming from his apartment! The best neighbor ever.

[Ivan Kelsall]

On a Violin / Viola,the instrument is muted by adding mass to the bridge. If you could figure out a way of doing the same thing to a mandolin bridge,it would possibly have the same effect.

I have one of these for my banjo (see pic.) It's simply a piece of bent brass,padded so as not to damage the bridge.You could try adding mass to the bridge 'somehow',& if it works,buy a banjo mute & simply re-bend it (open it up) to fit the mandolin bridge,
Ivan

[John Kelly]

Gretch guitars, among probably others, used to have a clever muting system where there was a fixture just in front of the bridge which allowed you to flip up a small flet or foam-rubber pad which then touched the strings, effectively muting them in the same way as palm-muting works by placing the fleshy part of your hand along the strings just on the saddle. I have tried palm-muting on my octave at times but find the mandolin a bit small to mute successfully, but if you have smaller hands then it might be worth a try, Sherry. Or a piece of foam pushed under the strings just immediately in front of the bridge saddle so that it touches the strings.

[Mandoplumb]

My dad used to clamp an old fashioned cloths pin on the bridge of his fiddle, it would lower the volume a great deal, don't know how effective it would be on mandolin, I guess it would lower volume some don't know how much.

[James Miller]

When the neighbor (trailer park) complains about me playing at 3 to 4AM I just use the index fingernail and brush the strings on the downstroke. That's fairly quiet.

Do know the oval hole has less bark than the F hole. Maybe stuff a rag in one of the F holes? /ducks

[Sherry Cadenhead]

Thanks for these suggestions. I was just thinking how great it would be to be able to practice while my husband and I are watching television in the evening. He wouldn't tolerate the noise, but maybe the motion. Of course, doing so would take time away from surfing the Cafe. :o(

[Sherry Cadenhead]

I especially enjoyed the sharing of personal experiences.

Suppose there's a way to construct an object with 4 strings of some material, maybe even mandolin strings, that can be picked without producing noise? Is that a crazy idea?

[Paul Busman]

If you're practicing while watching TV with your husband in the same room I think you're out of luck. Anything with strings will make some pick noise which he'd probably find distracting, plus, as you mention, the motion would be a problem.
If you're just trying to be courteous while he's in another room, just stuff something soft under the strings just ahead of the bridge. I just tried this with a rolled up piece of paper towel and it worked just fine.

[yankees1]

Earplugs

For wife !

[Sherry Cadenhead]

For wife !

Uh, that would be me. Not sure how that would work - unless it's so I can't hear the yelling.

[Zach Wilson]

Crazy idea.... we do this at our sometimes.

Tune off the tv entertainment and play music as entertainment instead. My kids love it!... (my wife, she's indifferent). They get to make up songs and be creative (even play their toy istruments) while I get to (sort of) practice. It's a win-win. Plus, it's a real hoot sometimes.

[Jim Garber]

Suppose there's a way to construct an object with 4 strings of some material, maybe even mandolin strings, that can be picked without producing noise? Is that a crazy idea?

Yes, and they are called ukuleles.

Actually you can buy nylon strings that will tune the same as mandolin:

[Seter]

I saw a nice looking banjo mute in another thread, might work.

[Sherry Cadenhead]

Crazy idea.... we do this at our sometimes.

Tune off the tv entertainment and play music as entertainment instead. My kids love it!... (my wife, she's indifferent). They get to make up songs and be creative (even play their toy istruments) while I get to (sort of) practice. It's a win-win. Plus, it's a real hoot sometimes.

Not so crazy. In fact, it sounds like great fun. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work at my house. Thankfully, my husband is addicted to the news. That gives me an hour+ of practice each day.

I was just thinking with no sound I could work on chord changes and tremolo.

[Timbofood]

Diaper under the strings, felt pick, different room, buy him more booze so he passes out then, play as loudly as you feel!
The roll of something under the strings is really the most practical thing, it allows you to still “feel” the pick action. You will still have Pick noise will be quieter than full strings.

[Tobin]

My dad used to clamp an old fashioned cloths pin on the bridge of his fiddle, it would lower the volume a great deal, don't know how effective it would be on mandolin, I guess it would lower volume some don't know how much.

I too use clothespins on my fiddles, which slightly reduces volume. Anything that adds mass to a fiddle bridge will help, because they are so lightweight and transmit a lot of vibration. Damping the ability to translate vibration to the sound board by adding mass will always help. If I want more muting ability, I go to wire mutes, tourte mutes, large rubber mutes, or even a brass mute as shown below. They all have different levels of muting ability.

For mandolin, however, it may not work so well. But still, adding mass to the bridge of any kind will damp the vibration. So it's worth experimenting with.

A step beyond that would be to physically mute the string with felt, much like pianos do when you mash the right pedal. One could create an adjustable mandolin mute with a felt pad that goes just in front of the bridge saddle.

[Louise NM]

A good emergency violin/viola mute is to fold a dollar bill in quarters, then weave it through the strings right behind the bridge. Felt might mute even more, and this would be simple on a mandolin.

In Tobin's photo, the small round mute, the Tourte, is used in orchestral playing to change the timbre, and it does knock the volume down considerably. The other two are practice mutes, what you want for a hotel room, or to avoid waking the baby or riling up the neighbors.

[Mark Wilson]

If you play around with it you can play quite freely while muting strings slightly with the right hand. I guess it's not for rhythm but I only use it for picking melody. The E strings are buggers but the rest are simple. Its effective for late night and I even use it in my normal picking for effect.

[Kirk Pey]

Sherry. Another approach you could try is to get your husband a good set of headphones so that he can hear his television and it may keep him from hearing your playing. I don't know if it would work but it may. Good luck.

[DHopkins]

Play a banjo for a week. He'll beg you to go back to the mandolin.

[Paul Busman]

If you play around with it you can play quite freely while muting strings slightly with the right hand. I guess it's not for rhythm but I only use it for picking melody. The E strings are buggers but the rest are simple. Its effective for late night and I even use it in my normal picking for effect.

I occasionally do that if I just want to play quietly for a short period of time, but I find it limits my hand/wrist motion too much for picking well.