Two Finger vs Closed Chords

[JeffD]

Belbein - I do understand how the open strings represent notes within the chord. Just trying to understand the best approach to learn chords first. Based on the posts so far I think it makes sense to go with the two finger chords and grow into the other chords as needed.

I think it depends on your goals and preferred genres. If you are going after bluegrass, it might be best to start with the closed form four finger chords used in bluegrass. What the heck, everything feels awkward at the beginning, so might as well start closer to where you eventually want to be.

If bluegrass is just a nice too but not a primary interest, the two finger chords will get you started, (and in my opinion are often prettier than their four fingered relatives).

The mandolin world is huge and diverse, and has many front doors. No matter where you start you will have regrets. No avoiding it.

[mandokismet]

I've been looking at movable chords a lot lately. For a variety of reasons, I like the groupings and layout on this website the best - all four types with major, minor, 7th, etc right next to each other.

https://simplymandolin.com/moveable-mandolin-chords/

[Br1ck]

From the very start, I tackled the hard stuff simultaneously with the easy. It took me ten minutes to learn the open two finger, two years to nail the G chop chord. I also tried to use my pinkie whenever I could instead of the easier fingerlings. And somehow without knowing why, I started playing scales and arpeggios in all keys.

It was about two years into this when I started picking up on fiddle tunes very quickly. My fingers had already learned all the combinations, and things were clicking into place. So I'd say spend some time every day on the harder path while you enjoy the easier ways to make music.

You will want to learn a lot of two finger chords. You'll call them double stops, so work on those open chords learning to play them across two, three, and four strings (x 2 of course). You'll need to learn to play just the strings you want.

[WaxwellHaus]

I also recently started my mandolin journey (though I played trumpet for ~8 years) with Bert Casey's Mandolin Primer and found the 4F G chord to be a pretty steep learning curve. What I feel helped me the most was to play scales and add the additional note for the pinkie as I found that I could manage the stretch up to the 7th fret better when all four fingers were on the same course rather than splayed across all four courses.

So when I played the Gmaj scale I would play G-A-B-C-D on the G course, D-E-F#-G-A, on the D course and so on. During this time I continued to work on the rhythm exercises in the book using the 2 F chord shapes. After about a week and a half of practicing scales with the additional note I found that my pinkie had gained enough strength and flexibility to fret the 4F G chord more clearly and with less effort/strain.