Having fooled around off and on for a little while, it's hard to tell exactly how long I've been playing the mandolin by now. I seem to remember that I started to get a bit more serious about it around may of last year, so I guess now is as good a time as any to reflect a little about it.

Long story short: I'm still having a blast.

I kind of switch back and forth between it and the guitar, depending on what's coming up and needs some work done, so progress is probably slower than it should, but it's still coming along nicely.¹

I'm now confortable with a bunch of simple chord inversions and can usually try out different positions on the spot. Some keys still trip me up,² and my chop definitely needs some cleaning up (I still tend to overplay when I should aim for a simple, tight backbeat, and can't always prevent that damn E string from ringing when it really shouldn't), but I can usually get by without too much of a thought on a simple progression.

Double stops are awesome

Lately I've been getting a kick out of double stop harmonies. I know those can sound great in a lead context, but I've mostly used those when playing backup so far, and I just love coming up with parts that outline the progression in a nice and subtle way. Those often don't sound that interesting on their own, but can add a really nice touch in context with other instruments, and it's an approach I rarely get to take on accoustic guitar.

As an example, I've been playing a very simple Niagara song with a bunch of friends, which is basically 3 chords played over and over. Here's the progression twice, once with the classic bluegrass chop chords, and then with more common (and easier) major positions:³

And here's what I came up with after fooling around with chord tones:

Kinda "meh" on its own, but here's how it sounds in "context" (ie with just a guitar backup and some quick approximation of the melody. Mando deliberatly too loud in the mix to try and make the part stand out):

I still don't have a good feel for when that approach is right for the groove, and I can see how this could get tiresome if overused, but right now I'm having a blast exploring that kind of lines. I kind of think of them like trombone parts in a New Orleans Jazz band, even though they're in a much higher register and therefore have a very different effect on the overall feel.

Running over thin ice: KISS is hard

As far as melody goes, I've mostly kept fooling around and haven't really put much thought into it beyond getting a few more scales patterns under my fingers. Theory wise, I'm not doing anything more complex than what I described in my previous note. I'll stop and analyze what's going on when I need to, but I'm trying to let my ears do the driving most of the time.

Dive head first, see what happens, and laugh it off when it goes horribly wrong. Which, needless to say, happens pretty often. Sometimes I manage to get back on my feet, sometimes I don't. Crash and burn, that's how you learn.⁴

Technique is clearly the one point that's lagging behind. The new tuning is starting to make sense in my head, but that won't do as long as the fingers don't internalize it too. So right now my eyes are still stuck to the fretboard, and I regularly get confused with some move that would have worked on the guitar, or overshoot a fret and land on a nasty minor second.⁵

I tell myself to keep things simple, but I have a hard time forcing the left hand to stay quiet. It seems like the muscle memory happily kicks in, not realizing it's in uncharted territory. The brain hears all the mistakes, but the fingers keep wiggling around like nothing happened. Maybe there's an unconscious "I can get out of this mess by playing more stuff" thing going on, too.

So I can tell I'm going to need a bit more discipline in that area.

One way I'm thinking of fixing this is to force myself to use a lot more of what I'm calling "pseudo tremolo",⁶ which is the same idea as regular tremolo but keeping the rhythm to regular 8th or 16th notes instead of going for the full effect.

Basically doing this:

instead of this:

It doesn't sound as cool (at least, not as cool as it would if I didn't suck at it to begin with), but it gets the job done and should give me time to think while still filling out the space nicely. Also, I should definitely start doing more of that on guitar. It won't sound quite as full, but I have a hunch it can still be pretty effective and should make for a nice change of pace.

Tone is in the hands

Technique is also crucial to get a good tone. And while the mechanics are familiar enough that's it's pretty easy to play something, making it sound good is another matter.

I could tell right away that I wasn't sounding quite right and would need to adjust a few things to produce something decent. But it seems like I've underestimated the matter by quite a bit.

Every instrument is different, and I knew from the get go that getting to know a new one well enough to truly make it shine was going to take a while. I already get tripped up when switching to a different guitar, so I wasn't expecting to get there in a copple of month.

Well, turns out that even sounding good enough for a quick jam is trickier than I thought.

Mandolin technique seems to be far more demanding than guitar, and simply getting used to the new string tension is not enough. I thought my fretting hand was doing okay at the whole "play with the very tip of your fingers" thing, but I quickly found out that I still had quite a lot of room for improvement on that front.

The good thing is that I know how to improve: slow the hell down and put in the hours. It's gonna take a while, but only time can fix the habit. I also know that its better to play simple stuff with good tone than the other way around, so I don't mind focusing on it and doing my chores, as it should help with the points I already discussed above.

It's slowly getting better, and I feel like it's transfering back to my guitar playing, too. It's pretty subtle, to the point that maybe I'm imagining it. But I noticed a while ago that some of my favourite guitar players,⁷ tonewise, had also played or even got started with the mandolin, and judging from the fact than it's just harder make the eight-stringer sing, I suspect this is not a coincidence.

Is there really something to it ? I dunno. Time will tell, I guess.

Nice gear is nice

Most of my early playing was done on a Gretsch New Yorker a friend had lent me. It's pretty nice, but I decided early on that I should get one of my own if I decided to get serious about it.

My first impulse was to just grab a Loar, as another friend plays one so I knew they were descent enough and they don't cost too much. But for some reason I couldn't find one on any european shop⁸ when I started looking at the beginning of last fall.

Kentucky⁹ and Eastman were the two brands that emerged from my online searches, but again, I couldn't find a good deal on one for a while. Price wise, the Eastman was clearly out of my budget, but I was willing to shell out on a used one if nothing else came up.

Finally found one at the accoustic shoppe. It was 200 bucks off because of a minor ding in the finish, the seller had a pretty good reputation, and it was located in the netherlands. Seemed like a no-brainer.

It arrived pretty well packed¹⁰ and, more importantly, perfectly set up. My first few strums had that awfull ring you get when the strings are less than a few hours old, which tells me they were put on right before sending.

I really don't know enough yet about this instrument to attempt a full review, but I'm more than satisfied. I still haven't given my friend his Gretsch back, so I've had the occasion to compare the two, and while the New Yorker is far from ridiculous, I can tell it's in a different league.

So that's cool, as I know I won't feel the need to upgrade for a while (and if I ever do, hopefully by then I'll have a better idea of what I'm looking for).

Next step is to get a decent pickup. I'll probably reach for a K&K, as I already have a pure mini on my guitar and haven't had to complain so far. And I'll probably start fooling around with strings pretty soon (I've kept to the standard D'addario set so far, but I'm very curious to hear how flatwounds behave on that thing).

Knowing myself, I'm sure I'll get to try tonerings, arm rests and whatever fancy gadget I come across at some point, but this can wait. Trying out gear can be fun, but I'm not quite in that mood these days, and I'd rather wait until I start knowing what I'm doing before indulging with GAS.

Shut up and play

Allright. Time to wrap this up.

Mandolin is freaking cool. I'd been tempted to try it for a while now, and I'm glad I finally got to it.

It's a much less common sound than guitar,¹¹ and just like banjo, this can be enough to stand out, especially in my neck of the woods. I'd be lying if I pretended I'm not hoping this will land me a few more gigs when I'm a bit more dependable with it.

Also, I'm enjoying it way more than banjo.

But the best part is defnitely getting to troll fiddle players by telling them you now realize how easy their lines actually are (completely disregarding the fact that they don't get to cheat with fancy frets, or that I would have no idea what to do with a bow).

Bonus points if you back that up by trying to play their parts back at them while being out of tune. Trust me, they'll love it!