Re: How do you contort your fingers so?
Originally Posted by
sbhikes
... 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!
Last edited by EdHanrahan; Aug-25-2018 at 12:25am.
- Ed
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