General Question...

[Keith Erickson]

I found that after not playing the guitar for over a year, I was able to pick it up and play better than I have ever expected.

Has anyone else notice that the Mandolin has improved the guitar playing skills?

Don't worry, I'm not turning my back on my fellow Mandolinenites

Just curious....

[JD Cowles]

heck yeah. i rarely play guitar, but i've noticed that my pinky is so much more useful now. just one more reason to play mando.

[bdisp]

I know what you mean Keith. I have a Santa Cruz OM and a '76 Mossman Flint Hills. I find myself very relaxed when flatpickin'guitar. Mando playing has cleaned my guitar playing up.

BTW.......... the Mossman is a MONSTER BG guitar.

[stevem]

Yeah, same thing happened to me. #My break was more like 2 years. #I picked up my Martin a couple months ago and all of a sudden I can wail like a banshee. #Very fun.

I've also noticed that I got way better at the useless skill of playing the drums with my thumbs on various objects too (tables, chairs, steering wheel).

[Doug Edwards]

Ditto, I'm a much better flat picker than before. I had a lot of room for improvement.

Have you noticed the urge to clap on the off beat with a song?

[John Rosett]

i've played mandolin and guitar for years, and recently started playing lap steel and dobro. i find that playing each instrument changes my approach to the others, and improves my playing all the way around.
john


"don't try to play any instruments other than the mandolin-it only opens up new avenues of unemployment."
-jethro burns

[Milan Christi]

Definitely - my guitar chops have improved quite a bit since I started playing the mando. I gave my son my old Kentucky and he's reporting the same phenomenon.

[acousticphd]

I found that after not playing the guitar for over a year, I was able to pick it up and play better than I have ever expected.
Has anyone else notice that the Mandolin has improved the guitar playing skills?

For awhile - yes. But not forever. I've rarely played guitar for the last several years in favor of mandolin, and I can honestly say my guitar playing is now officially worse than it was!

[ronlane3]

Doug, #I haven't noticed that I want to clap on the off beat, but my wife is getting very good at clapping on the off beat.

[picksnbits]

I noticed the same thing and it caused me to wonder if there were change of pace exercises that might improve my mandolin playing ability, like maybe temporarily replacing the bridge or saddle with one where the strings were closer together in order to force yourself to pick more cleanly. Kind of like running with ankle weights on. Haven't tried it yet though.

[arbarnhart]

I think the tighter tolerance has made me less sloppy. I was never all that good at the guitar and didn't play it all for quite a while (even loaned it out long term once). My mechanics are better, but my frustration with truly understanding music using the guitar is worse. Now I understand why I had so much trouble (inconsistent tunings and even the predominant 4ths make little sense) and I guess I am sort of mad at the guitar, if that makes sense. I wish I had tried mando or even (gulp) banjo and discovered 5ths sooner.

[meskalito]

The guitar is tuned the way it is for a reason. For more on this, check out the book "Fretboard Logic SE". The CAGED system made the guitar fretboard accessible to me in the same way that the mandolin fretboard is easy to navigate.

Jeremy

[John Flynn]

I had to pick up the guitar after a year of hardly playing it when the guitarist in my church music group went on vacation. Out of the blue, I started crosspicking on the guitar. I have really gotten into crosspicking only this past year on the mando, but had never done before on the guitar, but it was easy. I got compliments on it, which I totally didn't expect, but was great.