Re: Is the mandolin inefficient?
You say. "incidental noise," I say, "characteristics."
The qualities you cite - and there are others - are not necessarily limitations; they help define the instrument. These are what the instrument offers. Some aspects are similar to other instruments, some different. I say, work with what it provides and permits, in its distinctive way(s).
Some of these issues can be addressed by adjusting the materials you use. Type of strings or pick may affect volume, for instance. Technique can be adjusted to reduce extraneous nose for picking and fingering. One may compensate for rapid decay by trilling notes. It's worth noting this technique sounds better on mandolin than on other instruments. Also, bowlback mandolins tend to hve longer sustain. Its range is actually comparable to other string instruments, despite being higher pitched than most. As to chord depth .. well, not a whole lot can be done there. Some jazz players leave out notes in a chord, even the root or fifth, when other notes are deemed more important to producing the desired sound. In group playing, these notes are often being played by other instruments.
There are plenty of ways to work with what a mandolin offers in order to get the sound one wants.
One more thing, somewhat tangential ... The locution that the instrument may be the "least efficient instrument for making beautiful noise." I've seen this sort of wording a lot during the last few years, in which someone posits that such-and-such is the most or least so-and-so. It strikes me that such considerations - whether the subject of a conversation is the extreme example of the category the writer has mentioned - are irrelevant, indeed detrimental to successful discussion. This skews the conversation toward whether or not the example cited is indeed such an extreme, getting away from discussing the actual aspects of the matter. There are other ways to state a premise or emphasize a point.
Just sayin'. And now easing on down off my soapbox ...
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller
Furthering Mandolin Consciousness
Finders Keepers, my duo with the astoundingly talented and versatile Patti Rothberg. Our EP is finally done, and available! PM me, while they last!
Bookmarks