Q for 5 String players

[Daniel Nestlerode]

Hi folks,
A good friend recently nabbed a Fender FM-60E for an excellent price and brought it over for show and tell. Love it.

But I have trouble with 5 strings. I keep thinking I want a 5 stringer and then when I play one, I keep wanting to go back to 4! When I play a 5 string, the guitar player in me wants to use all 5 strings in chords, and it's hard to ignore what seems like a natural use of the instrument. But sometimes using all 5 strings is inappropriate either because of intonation issues or because the left hand reaches a re too difficult to be useful.

Here is the question:
When chording, do you treat the 5 string as a mandola with an extra treble string or a mandolin with an extra bass string?

Daniel

[mando.player]

Daniel

I go the complete opposite route. For chords I mostly use 3 note chords on the CGD strings. To my ear they sound more focused. I'll occasionally use 4 note chords on CGDA, but I've never even attempted 5 note chords.

[Ted Eschliman]

I'm with Charlie; I think going the other way and thinking more in 3-note voices is extremely liberating. I tend to voice them in the lower strings, too. It just sounds better, especially in an "accompaniment" role.

Paul Glasse says he still uses the 4-note voicing; maybe he will weigh in on this.

[mandroid]

.. if using 3 string chords .. my Ez 3 chord song basics, >> play the I on the 3 in the middle ,
means the V, V7 is the 3 on the higher side , and the IV the 3 lowest strings.. all on the same fret..

[Brad Weiss]

I go both ways- three note chords on CGD and three note chords on GDA. I think Don Stiernberg said a 5-stringer is like 2 instruments, a mandolin on the top and a mandola on the bottom, and a kinda am working on that model. So far I've found it fun for chord melodies where you have a wider range for harmonies underneath and more room to move your melody across the top - even a melody note on the D string allows you access to two more harmony notes. For example:

[Christian McKee]

I play the big majority of my backup stuff on the C and G strings, with harmony extensions into the upper register as appropriate, BUT... I do play five string chords in a few places from time to time, as there are a few shapes easy to extend and move! For example, fretted from C to E: 22452. That's D, use your index to barre the C, G and E strings. Then there's 42245, which is A major. It's easy enough to add the pinky to that one. Play it 42235 for Am, again with the pinky on the E. All three of those go anywhere you want...

I also play big open five string G, D, C and F chords on a fairly regular basis, and when correctly placed, it's pretty cool.

Christian

[Don Stiernberg]

Daniel,

How ya doin'? Or as our Mayor (Da Mare) of Chicago might say.."How ya Dune?"

The answer to your original question is.....YES!

I've always been real self-conscious about comping for other instruments because of the range of the mandolin.Sometimes backing up a single-line guitar solo can sound like the right hand of a piano accompanying the left, which of course never happens. so if you get down in the mandola ranged area of the five-string, then it sounds more like two guitars playing together--the guitar has only 7 lower notes than our C string after all. so for what little chording I might do on the five, I'm probably more frequently down on the bottom four strings. Do it a few times and the transpositions become second nature. and whatever you do, don't look at the fretboard, that'll mess you up!Whether to use a three or four note voicing should be determined by the music: behind a singer or single-note solo, perhaps a color tone or two would add interest. Behind a chordal guitar or piano, the potential for clashing is still there even with only four little notes!
So be careful out there! Caution! Alterations ahead!

[mando.player]

Nice clip Brad. What do you have going on for an amp?

[Brad Weiss]

Nice clip Brad. What do you have going on for an amp?

Believe me, you don't want to know... just a lousy Squier 15W box. I definitely need to upgrade... but thanks for listening!

[pglasse]

I tend to play chords on the lower pitched strings. That's one of the great things about a 5-string electric mandolin. You can voice chords low enough to be somewhat supportive. It's allowed me to do many years of duo gigs with guitar or piano -- even clarinet, pedal steel, and trombone!

Ted is right that I generally think in 4 note chords. In the last year or so, paying attention to what I actually do on the bandstand, I've seen that in practice I transition between playing 4, 3, 2, or 1 note at a time in backup situations. But I still tend to visualize it all in terms of 4 note voicings on the lower 4 strings. Often I'll fret a 4 note chord on CGDA strings but only actually pick the bottom two or three strings.

Why fret a four note chord if I'm not going to pick all the notes? I'm used to it and it allows me to use the fingerings that are natural to me. It somehow helps me to "see" or conceptualize the whole chord. Perhaps most importantly, it keeps me from accidentally picking a discordant open string with my right hand.

Yes, I sometimes use five string chords but really pretty rarely -- perhaps to end a song with a big fat chord.

To digress a bit (though I think it's related) in my experience most of us, when we first tackle a five string mandolin, find it helpful to "think" in a transposed key. That is, "I can play out of "G position" on the lowest four strings and I'll be in the key of C." Eventually, gradually, that need disappears and we start to visualize all five strings as a continuous unit. Getting there can require some real work but there can be huge rewards. Among other things, playing 5-string electric mandolin has allowed me to gig in tons of situations that just wouldn't have been possible on an 8-string acoustic.

I hope this is helpful.

Paul Glasse
Austin, Texas

[Daniel Nestlerode]

Ted, Brad, Don, Paul and all,
Thanks for your wisdom and advice. <raising right hand> I promise not to be put off by 5 strings anymore. And I will, as funds permit, pursue a 5 string instrument. </raising right hand>

Don,
Things are good here in Modesto, but we don't see you enough on this side of the continental divide. Hey if Andy Statman can play Congregation Beth Shalom in Modesto CA, so can you!

Baseball season is open! The world seems a brighter place in spring. Here's to the Cubbies and the Giants. May they meet in the NLCS.

Hope all is well in Chi-town.

Daniel

[mrmando]

Don will be up in Oregon in mid-June...