5 String Resources

[Sweetpea44]

Quick question about first starting out on a 5 string .... are there any good resources out there aimed at learning to play them? Or, would it just be beneficial to look at some mandola charts/diagrams to get the feel for the extra string? Or, looking at information for the 6 string bass and reversing it? Any thoughts or info about them?

[rico mando]

i would recommend just thinking it all through . use the same mandolin resources but use your brain to apply them . sure you can use some 5 note chords that you can't on a four string but a g major scale is still the same on the g string and the same pattern used on the c string is a c major.

do your scales and arpeggios ,practice your chords it will all eventually become familiar and it wont be any different than playing mandolin or mandola. you may occasionally get confused and rip out solo in the wrong key but that will happen when you play 4 instruments ie; gdae cgda gdaeb cgdae . and then there is my tenor guitar tuned B flat/F /B flat/ F ( its a goldtone )


if it helps to see it written out . take the time to do it your self . that will help you learn it and under stand it.

[Daniel Nestlerode]

you may occasionally get confused and rip out solo in the wrong key but that will happen when you play 4 instruments ie; gdae cgda gdaeb cgdae

You mean I'm not the only one? Whew!
Been thinking about how to avoid this, but that's a subject for a different thread.

Daniel

[mandroid]

Tenor banjo also uses CGDA, so theres lots of trad jazz chord-melody songs to work on.

[Jim MacDaniel]

You are effectively playing a CGDA instrument when you are playing a standard mandolin from the fifth fret, so you already know how to think in terms of your C-course, just an octave higher -- or is your question more about how to develop a repertoire that will utilize the c-course?