Mandolin and guitar at the same time?

[jv nc]

Been a guitar player for many years......a flatpicker for a very short time (spent the vast majority of my previous playing time as a finger-style player). I find I'm progressing nicely in the latter, but I have a question about ALSO learning the mandolin (simultaneously).

Would the practice time devoted to one instrument stunt or enhance the other?

I appreciate any feedback you might offer.

jeff

[BeginnerMandolinistTyler]

Pretty much all mandolin players play guitar. I'm like you. I started on guitar, and decided to try mandolin. I only played rock music on guitar for 8 years so I never really got that good at it. Mandolin and guitar are very similar in technique, in my opinion. I'm new to mandolin as well (only for 9 months), and it has helped my guitar playing as well! I would highly recommend it.

[OldSausage]

It definitely helps to learn other instruments. On the other hand, it pays to really master one.

[pArispAl]

same here. I'm 51, started the guitar when i was 15 or so, never took classes, so I've been more or less strumming and flat-picking for 35 years. Three years ago i started the mandolin, playing two-finger chords and strumming as if it was a guitar... No good!

So I started to take lessons in October last year. This makes a real difference. When people ask me, I tell them it's the same as switching from the organ to the piano. An organist can play chords on a piano and it will sort of sound like a piano, but he won't be playing any piano.

Placing your fingers on the neck, your pick between your fingers arer basic but important things. learn them well before it's too late.

The hardest thing is the repertoire. I'm not that much into bluegrass and have to learn those reels which all seem to be sounding the same

Yesterday my nephew visited and we played for 30 minutes and I tried to back him up, and while I was not good (he is super good on guitar!) I felt a huge difference versus 6 months ago. I'm more familiar with the neck and can move on the frets with more confidence. That was great fun playing Ripples and Friend of the Devil albeit in the most basic and simple fashion!

The sad thing is that now that I just bought my second mando, I hardly touch my Martins anymore...

Here are some quick tips from Mike Marshall



Take the plunge and have fun!

Herve in pAris

[Willie Poole]

I played guitar for many years and then when I switched to mandolin I found that later when I picked up a guitar I was a lot better than before I switched, I don`t know what caused me to become a better guitar player unless it was that learning the chop on the mandolin made me have better timing on the guitar....I have played both with bands but now I just stick with the mandolin....I love playing guitar but arthritis won`t let me make a "C" chord position so I packed it up in it`s case

[Tim2723]

I'm one of the odd ducks I suppose. While there are a lot of guitarists who go on to play some mandolin, I started with mandolin and fiddle a bit with a guitar. I never thought of one helping or hindering the other, they're rather separate entities for me, but I never progressed very far with the guitar either. The one thing I do tell those who come to the mandolin from the guitar world is not to treat the mandolin as a little guitar. Learn the mandolin techniques from the start.

[shortymack]

Would the practice time devoted to one instrument stunt or enhance the other?

Could go both ways. Sometimes its hard to cook dinner fixin' breakfast.

[Gerry Hastie]

I mucked around with guitar before seriously getting into the mandolin. When I've gone back to guitar I've found that my right hand technique with a pick is so much better and my approach to working out or learning a piece is completely different and better. In terms of practice time affecting one or the other it all depends on how much time you've got and how you use it...

[allenhopkins]

I'm one of the odd ducks I suppose...I started with mandolin and fiddle a bit with a guitar...

There's your problem! Fiddling with a guitar is difficult: hard to fit a dreadnought body under your chin, and hard to bow a single string with the flat fingerboard.

I appreciate having the frets, though.

[stevedenver]

well only you can really know how much time and discipline you can muster

unless your gonna die soon, play em both, you have time to learn over the course of your life!

and, you might find , like me, that mando inspires different aspects of your musical ability-

i think too, for me, it provides me with a differing musical perspective

yes , practically speaking, if you have other things in your day/life, schedules, family, job, exercise etc one will likely limit the time you practice on the other

i come home some days from work, simply shot mentally (im a lawyer) , and playing or working on one insturment is sometimes more than i can muster on top of making dinner , being with wife, etc

fwiw, i play guitar and have for over forty years-im...competant id say-due to ....practice and focus and mileage playing all sorts of music

for the past year or two, (although i have always played),
while i still play guitar weekly, i have really concentrated on mando with my band-
almost total immerson, except when our guitarist doesnt show, (ditto for the bass player)

and this was a primary purpose for me getting a band together, to work my mando skills rather than have little focus and no deadlines (like gigs)


in some ways it has made me grow, as speed and accuracy and improvisation have improved, as have my bag of tricks on cross picking, arpeggiating , strums etc, stuff i use to spice up what we play, all due to FOCUS

however, because of the band , and gigging, i tend to limit practice more to our 'material' , vocals etc
which means, im not always learning new fiddles tunes, working jazz, or constructively noodling or adding AS MUCH to my mando repertoire of songs
it is likely the same will happen with your guitar playing-there is no substitute for mileage and the woodshed

so in this way, i am confirming , something will be traded off

but mando is really a wonderful instrument

but immersion and disciplined practice may help you get past mediocre-
imho, there are few insturments as versatile as guitar, but everyone plays...

i was learning piano, and loving it, but its really difficult and slow progress,
so i made the call, for the time it took,and interest in my other instruments, i let it go-simply too much in my day

[Charley wild]

To some degree it depends what you are trying to accomplish. I play, or play at, four instruments and I've had a ton of fun with music since the middle fifties. On the other hand I sometimes wonder what I would have accomplished if I had concentrated on one instrument. I probably would have had just about as much fun and would be one heck of a lot better on which ever instrument I chose to favor.

[eastman_315]

The sad thing is that now that I just bought my second mando, I hardly touch my Martins anymore...

Now that *is* sad. :-(

While I am playing my mando more than my guitars right now as I learn, I really can't imagine playing mando exclusively. I've played guitar since the mid-'60s and will play 'till they pry my dead, barr-chording fingers from the neck of a nice guitar!

To answer the OP, though, I've found that adding a mando to the herd has actually helped me with guitar. The double courses actually seem to build my calluses up better than guitar, and I think just playing more in general helps with finger strength. Mando plays a bit differently, as well, & I think that helps develop some of the finger strength in areas that don't normally get worked on with just the guitar. I've been a bit surprised, but it seems I can pick up my guitar and play better almost immediately without the short warmup period I normally had.

Personally, I approach the mando as a totally separate instrument, though. I will start to take lessons as it gets closer to my summer break (I'm a teacher), and I'm interested in learning different styles than I play on guitar. I'm self-taught on guitar and mostly play finger-style & flat-picking. I'm hoping to learn a more lead-style of picking to accompany my guitar-playing friends & possibly some classical or jazz, as well. Time will tell! :-)

Anyway, I'm hoping that learning mando will help to broaden my love of guitar, not diminish it.

Frank

[xiledscot]

I agree with Charley. Although born much, much........much later..Jack of all Trades and Master of None.but happy.
Time taken?......Lucky me..all day every day.

[Jim]

Open this thread hoping someone had figured out how to play them at the same time. No such luck, guess I'll stick to multi tracking As many others have said, one makes me better at the other. Understanding theory has improved for me as well since I took up Mandolin and picking accuracy and speed benefits both instruments. Can be a bit of a challenge to play the same tune on one and then the other, same melody, different fingers.

[mandroid]

<cue> the pictures of double neck, guitar- mandolin combinations..

[Stamper]

for me they each feed the other: I make a point to play the same things on each instrument -- well at least tunes. If I learn a sprightly tune on the mandolin then I teach myself to play it in all sorts of keys on the guitar. For me going back and forth between each keeps the door of learning open to both and my intuitive sense of intervals has improved dramatically over the past few years. I seem increasingly to know where I'm going without really knowing in my head just where I am going. One thing is for certain: the guitar, life-long playing, led me three or so years ago to the mandolin; and the mandolin has made me such a much better life-long player of the guitar. And I think I've made progress with the mandolin mostly because of my lifetime thing with the guitar. Beats me. I'm just glad to have both --

[Hazelnut]

Another guitar (and bass) player here - newbie mandolinist, though.

I had the strangest experience only today. I've been playing mandolin exclusively for over a week and when I went to pick up my guitar, it felt like some wildly mutated wood-monster and I had the fleeting sensation that my hands would NEVER be able to produce anything approaching music from that massively thick neck!

Okay, the moment passed - but it was an eye-opener!

[DeamhanFola]

On the plus side, as others have said, the double courses of strings definitely give you a workout & calluses that will serve you well on the guitar--the single strings will seem easy-peasey. In addition, to my ears here are some genres of music where melody lines just work better on mandolin. While there are many talented guitar players in the Irish traditional music that I play, I'd rather hear a mandolin playing the melody than a guitar melody line any day. That's just my prejudice though.

The only negative impact that it will have is in terms of taking away time from the guitar. I'm a multi-instrumentalist who feels torn between many loves (fiddle, guitar, mandolin, uilleann pipes, bodhrán). I'd toyed with taking up banjo for songwriting/home recording purposes, but ultimately decided that would diffuse the focuss way too much. In fact, these days I'm way more often on the fiddle than anything else--apart from needing the most practise on it, it's also the instrument upon which days off make themselves most quickly felt/heard.

[drbluegrass]

Was a guitar player for 5+ decades before taking on teaching myself mandolin. My mandolin playing has come along very well and being a pretty good bluegrass guitar flatpicker has really helped. But, teaching myself bluegrass fiddle has really been a challenge. I find it far more difficult vs mandolin.


Tom

[Tom Cherubini]

I'm afraid to get out the guitar. It'll seem so gigantic, clumsy, and low-sounding that I don't know whether I'm gonna like it. Can't bring myself to do it. Every time I get close, I pick up the mandolin instead, and get my jollies on that.

[Cecily_Mandoliner]

I started with guitar only since December 2011, and I struggled with it. (I played piano for years) When I picked up the mandolin in September 2012, I "got it" more easily than the guitar, because of the 5ths, I think, and smaller format.
Now, I've been bringing out my 3/4 Classical with the nylon strings, when I want to practive chord transitions after my fingertips are sore from practicing the mandolin, and I have found that I really improved my guitar skills, and knowledge of where everything is. I'm making that translation between the string arrangements more easily.
I think for me, it's the fact that I play music every day, more than once a day, if I can, and I'm getting a better sense about what the diffrerent voices need to sound like.
We were at the GC the other night, and I picked up a beautiful banjo (Deering Goodtime), and plinked around on it, and all of a sudden, I was playing a strum pattern. my DH stared at me in shock. "Where'd that come from? You've got rhythm!" (something neither of us claim to have).
It's all so much fun!

[tmsweeney]

for me playing mandolin, octave mandolin , mandola , and mandocello are different enough that what I practice on one does not really help the other

nor ( do I believe) that it hinders the other

now a lot of my "guitar" habits have crossed over to the octave and mandocello

so why not - at lest you won't get to bored at jams

[ButchA]

I'm a guitar player and have been playing for close to 40 years. I took lessons with my older sister back in the day, and then I wanted to rock. So, rock I did... I soon got an electric and studied rock music, pentatonic scales, etc... and kept at it. I'm not bragging or tooting my own horn or anything, but I got good enough to play along with Eric Clapton on his albums and match him note for note on his solos.

Then I saw that Led Zeppelin could play acoustic and use a mandolin in their songs. I was awestruck over the idea of rocking out on one song, then switching gears and going acoustic and playing mandolin on another song. Versatility!!!

To put it another way... If you came over to my house, I'd grab my Fender Stratocaster and plug it in to my amp, crank it up, and click on the distortion pedal and wah-wah pedal, and blast your ear drums with a blistering version of Voodoo Child (Slight Return) by Jimi Hendrix. Then a few moments later, I'd get out my mandolin and play some irish jigs and reels with you!