How do you contort your fingers so?

[sbhikes]

I have to play for a wedding tomorrow and I've told the others that I'm not good at chords and will probably have to sit out the song we're going to do. But meanwhile, I thought I would give it a try. I have not ever really played any chords on the mandolin. I've always played my mandolin as a sort of "pickin' fiddle" and played the melody for old-time fiddle tunes. I've been playing like that for over 10 years.

So anyway, I learned some easy chords. But man, it hurts to contort my fingers and it makes my hand cramp up. I'm a woman and I don't have huge fingers, but it is hard to get my fingers side-by-side like you would have to do for a chord like Em. How do you contort your fingers so?

[Randi Gormley]

I also don't play chords, but when I do, I use double stops or two-finger chords. just a suggestion.

[MediumMando5722]

I'm confused how you guys aren't playing chords, but if you're trying to get something by tomorrow, go for the two finger chords.

[foldedpath]

If your index finger tip has a decent callus, and your strings aren't too far apart, you can play a nice "E modal" chord like this:

X220

Press your index fingertip down on the D and A string courses together, don't pick the bottom G string, and keep the E string open. It's a dyad without a third, so it works for both an E minor and E major chord.

Move that same idea down one set of strings for 2200, and you have a nice "modal A" chord that works for A minor or A major. I abuse the heck out of these chord shapes when playing Irish trad, because it uses just one index finger and your other fingers are free for melody over the chord.

This is no substitute for chord knowledge if you're playing a style of music that needs full chords, but it's a useful trick if you're playing mainly "fiddle tunes" out of first position, and need just occasional chord embellishment.

[Marty Jacobson]

The combination of muscle memory, strength, and flexibility built up over time is how you build dexterity. It's going to feel awkward, even painful at first. Find the position that's least painful or ideally tension- and pain-free, and practice that a lot. Pretty soon you can do it twice a second without thinking bout it. But don't force it before your body is ready to do it, give it time and stick with it and it'll become second nature.

[EdHanrahan]

... hard to get my fingers side-by-side like you would have to do for a chord like Em.

I'm confused. On guitar, yes, side-by-side fingering is normally used for an open Em, fretted 022000. But on mandolin, with tighter string size and spacing, only one fingertip, or pad, is normally used to play the same side-by-side (if inverted!) notes, 0220. With only one active finger, there's just not much "contorting" going on!

Even some top players quietly hint that it's okay if you don't cleanly fret all 4 (of the middle) strings; as long as the two innermost notes, an E (on the D pair) and a B (on the A) are ringing, the chord will be usable in most situations.

FWIW, guitarists (and there are LOTS of us here!) tend to assign one finger to each fret and reach ACROSS the fretboard. Mandolinists, like violinists, hold their fretting hand at much more of an angle, assign two frets to each finger, and extend & retract along the length of the fretboard. That's how we fit all those fingers in there!

[onassis]

Do you ever use double stops? I would say don't bother trying to learn chords in a tight time frame - just use double stops. Or just softly follow the melody, using tremolo where you can.

[Mandoplumb]

Why do we think we have to chord every insrtument. In a bluegrass band the guitar usually chords, tho not always, leaving other instruments to use double stops,fills or single strings. In a "dance band" of horns no one chords because they can't, the chords are built by the different horns and parts. All instruments should do some type of backing in most music but I for one seldom " chord" my mandolin if that means striking a triad over and over.

[Mark Gunter]

I have to play for a wedding tomorrow and I've told the others that I'm not good at chords and will probably have to sit out the song we're going to do. But meanwhile, I thought I would give it a try. I have not ever really played any chords on the mandolin. I've always played my mandolin as a sort of "pickin' fiddle" and played the melody for old-time fiddle tunes. I've been playing like that for over 10 years.

So anyway, I learned some easy chords. But man, it hurts to contort my fingers and it makes my hand cramp up. I'm a woman and I don't have huge fingers, but it is hard to get my fingers side-by-side like you would have to do for a chord like Em. How do you contort your fingers so?

The strength and dexterity required to play chords well on a stringed instrument requires training, sbhikes, it's just that simple. Imagine a person who has lain in a coma for year; when that person wakes, she will have to train herself to walk again, she'll experience a lot of pain and cramping in the muscles of the feet and legs, because they'll have to be used and coordinated to do something they haven't been doing previously.

It's a good analogy to learning to play chords on a stringed instrument. The fingers are made to take positions that don't normally take in nature, and to hold that position, and to quickly change to other such positions smoothly at will. At first, this training goes slowly, is difficult, can be painful, and cannot be practiced very long without cramping.

The good news is that this initial, difficult and painful phase doesn't last long. If you were ever to decide to "push through" and master chord playing, you'd find yourself building strength there and mastering a few chords in a relatively short time, and the more you play and practice, the longer you can perform without fatigue. It's all a matter of training. It will become almost as natural to you as walking after a while.

The difficulty you feel trying to play chords is one good reason, I believe, that so many beginning guitar students quit and never learn to play.

It's easier to get away with not playing chords on mandolin if you play in the right genre and limit what you want to be able to do on the mandolin. Nothing wrong with that, to each his own.

As far as your gender goes, and the size of your hands, etc. - just think of the many examples of fine mandolin players of every age, either gender, every body type, who play very well whether ITM, Bluegrass, ragtime, jazz chordal melodies ... I guarantee all those folks experienced discomfort in their hands when they first started.

[Mark Gunter]

Why do we think we have to chord every insrtument.

Stringed instrument like the mandolin? The general answer is, "Because we can." The specific answer in this case would have to be given by sbhikes. She's the one who finds she could use this skill tomorrow, after ten years of playing.

The larger point is that learning to play chords (or just double stops, and comping rhythms, etc.) cannot be learned overnight, it should be a practicing goal for well-rounded musicianship. Nobody has to learn chords on suitable instruments, be it piano, guitar or mandolin. But if you ever think you may want to be able to play chords on a piano, mandolin or guitar, then you'll have to train yourself for it. The surprising thing for someone beginning this is that it is not easy at first. The surprising thing for somebody determined to do it is that the difficulty fades rather quickly after you exercise a while.

[DavidKOS]

. In a "dance band" of horns no one chords because they can't, the chords are built by the different horns and parts..

I've played in "horn dance bands" since 1972.

They almost always - even marching we used a banjo - had a rhythm section of a bass instrument, a drum or some sort, usually trap set, and at least one of the following, depending on situation: piano, guitar, banjo, ukulele, mandolin, and occasionally accordion; they played chords in a rhythmic style that fit the dance genre.

On top of that, the horn section can play chords, as a unit, as you mention.

Just to clear that up a bit

Note - a lot of the modern New Orleans street brass bands use no chordal instrument per se, as the banjo has dropped out of street band popular use along with the clarinet.

[sbhikes]

Well, I think I figured out something that works okay. A friend of mine said you really only have to learn a couple of chords and then you just move them up and down the fretboard. Basically you just learn where C and G chords are and move them around, and he showed me how you can play the G chord as basically three fingers barred across. So I figured out where A, D, and E are using just two chord shapes. But I also need an F#m, and that F#m is hard because I can't seem to put two fingers next to each other and I can't seem to press them both down with one finger. I can do it if I use my pinky and ring fingers. So I'll just do that. We're going to practice this later a couple hours in advance of the gig, so I told them if they think this just sounds hopelessly horrible for me to do, I'll just sit it out. The guitar guy is really good so that's all you really need. Maybe the banjo guy is learning the tune, too, I don't know.

I'm hoping soon to learn to play chords, but on the ukulele. I don't really like the sound of mandolin chords in old-time music, and I don't think I've ever heard mandolin chop chords in old-time music. Hence the reason I've never done so myself. I'm not the most accomplished musician in the world, but I get by.

[sbhikes]

Oh wait I think I found an easier way to do the F# minor. Cool. This will be pretty easy. Now if I can just pretend to look like I know what I'm doing I think nobody will notice.

It's weird how people don't notice sometimes. They're usually pretty stoked to see real fiddles and stuff. Like nobody ever sees real fiddles out in the wild. Half the time I play out and about they don't even know what a mandolin is and ask me what I'm playing.

[sblock]

I find it hard to believe that you've played oldtime-style mandolin for ten years but never managed to learn how to play chords in all that time. All the oldtime players I know use chords fairly extensively, both in backup and also in lead. These players also use double-stops, which aren't really chords, but require similar hand positions and musical strategies. Still, it's NEVER too late to learn chords and double-stops!! And yes, you will need to learn to use some different fretting techniques, like barres, partial barres, two-courses-to-a-finger, and new left-hand positions. It's all good! My hands are unusually small (as small or smaller than yours, I'd wager), so I usually play E/Em modal chord, 0220, with two adjacent fingertips, rather than a single one. Use whatever works for you, but by all means, learn to play lots and lots of chords. Once you know how chords are built from individual notes (i.e., the music theory behind them) and a few simple, movable chord shapes/patterns, you can pretty much figure out every chord you'll ever need on the mandolin. After that, it's a matter of doing it A LOT, so you can switch quickly among chords using all the left-hand fingers in concert. Practicing chords is just as important as practicing individual note fingering. And eventually, you will be able to make the stretch to play 7532 ("bluegrass G"). Takes a while, but if I can do it and Sierra Hull can with her little hands, then you can too! Hang in there and never give up.

[CES]

So, how’d it go?

[Pittsburgh Bill]

I also don't play chords, but when I do, I use double stops or two-finger chords. just a suggestion.

I do the same. Learn a melody first and then begin fill by adding double stops and 2 finger chords. Only adding in 3 or 4 finger chords when needed.
Reminds me of when I first started playing and sought lessons from a local well known player. I told him I wanted to learn chords and rhythm patterns. His suggestion was that I learn to play guitar. As a side note, I have yet to take a lesson.

[JonZ]

The possibility of public embarrassment can be a great motivator!

Chords are hard for most people at first. You just have to start slowly and deliberately. Go back and forth between two chords. Note the way each finger moves to transition between them. Sometimes you can place all of your fingers at once. Sometimes you can’t. There is an optimal path each finger should take. Practice the optimal path.

Sometimes people turn chord change practice into strumming practice. Don’t do that. Strumming can hide the fact that your chords are muddy. Eliminate extraneous strumming until you get clean tones from every string. Grip the chord. Check the sound. Adjust and check as needed. Switch chords.

Doing difficult things can make you tense up. Don’t tense up. If you can play single notes at speed and try to jump right in and do chords at speed, you will probably tense up. Start slowly and deliberately. Be patient with yourself.

[sbhikes]

I find it hard to believe that you've played oldtime-style mandolin for ten years but never managed to learn how to play chords in all that time. All the oldtime players I know use chords fairly extensively, both in backup and also in lead. These players also use double-stops, which aren't really chords, but require similar hand positions and musical strategies.

That's basically what I do. The song we played was in a different genre, more of bluegrass and bluegrass mandolins do that chop chord thing, which I've never done.

So, how’d it go?

It was awesome. I ended up not playing chords. Instead I played the melody during the instrumental part. The song was "Swept Away", which I don't know if it's exactly bluegrass, but whatever it was, it wasn't old-time. Anyway, I just played melody and the usual double-stops and probably nobody could hear anything anyway because we were not amplified but the singers were amplified and they sounded great.

I really want to tell the story of the event though, if you'll indulge me. It was pretty awesome. It was a wedding for two people in their 50s, and not the first wedding for either one of them. It was not a pageant like most young people's weddings. The wedding was at the Unitarian Universalist church where the pastor is a woman and an atheist, so already it's totally weird and awesome in a totally Santa Barbara way.

The bride is the daughter of a famous local university professor who has for decades taught a controversial course on the Vietnam War and hosts a radio show called Culture of Protest where he plays protest music from many eras. The groom is the son of a retired local undercover police big shot. Way back in the Vietnam era, the professor and the cop would have been enemies. Back then, protestors burned down the Bank of America near the university.

My friend in our little band had been a protestor from back then. He says that the protesters didn't actually burn down the bank. They tried to but couldn't get it started so they gave up. Instead, FBI infiltrators into their group started the fire that burned down the bank and then the protestors got blamed. The groom's father would have been an enemy of my friend back then.

All this back story is to say that all these people are members of what makes our community the special place that it is. They came together as people from the heart of a difficult era of Santa Barbara history, and came together as family. They all clearly loved each other. This was one of the themes spoken in the many toasts. It was a really nice event.

Our band was there because for over 30 years, our local old-time jam has played on Wednesday nights in the park across the street from the church. We've played at events at the church. We've played at events for the pre-school next door to the church because our patriarch's wife was a teacher there. Many of the people at the wedding had been children at the pre-school. We're all part of this crazy Santa Barbara community, part of what makes our community the weird and wonderful place that it is. And for a night, we musicians were all there understanding why it's so important to come together in real life as real people and do things in the community.

And I personally have only been a member of the jam for a little over 10 years and didn't know much of this history and connection to our jam. So I feel grateful that I've put in the time not just to learn the music but to be a part of something really big.

[Mark Gunter]

Sounds like a great experience with the playing, and no worries with it, glad all went well.

Also, thanks for sharing the story about the wedding, the history and the old time jam group. Very interesting!