Beginning mandola

Trad Strings
1

Hi folks,
a friend of mine left his mandola in my place a couple of years ago.
Then he went and bought a bouzouki, that he loves more.

So I figured; maybe I could learn a tune or two on that mandola while it’s in the house?

Problem is, I can’t find a good starting point.
I can pick out the single melody line of a tune myself. But I want to learn one some accompanyiment, too.
So I figured learning a simple tune with some accomp. picks here and there would be a good start.
I have experience playing piano/keys, flute, whistle, and just a little bodhran and pipes. But really, no stringed instruments.

I love the classical mac’s fancy/mist on the mountain recording by De Dannan and would like to go along those lines (yes, I know they are masters).

Moreover: This mandola is tuned in C-G-D-A bottom up; is that a good/right mandola tuning?

Can anyone help me by suggesting a good tune in a good position that won’t make me strain my fingers too much, while also ending up in a pub-friendly key?

Other directions are welcome too :slight_smile:


best regards;
Eivind

2

Hi Eivind

The CGDA tuning is correct for the mandola. It’s the next largest size mandolin.

I don’t know of any mandola methods that address the kind of playing you’re talking about (actually, I don’t know of many mandola books at all), but you may end up with some mandolin methods that have to be transcribed for mandola. If you’re playng from mandolin tablature, the fingerings would be identical, you’ll just be in a different key. If the piece is in G, you’ll be playing in C, for example.

I hope you’ll enjoy playing. I’ve only messed around a bit a couple of times with a friend’s mandola. I found the CGDA tuning to be not so useful for the Irish repertoire, since so much of it developed around the GDAE tuning of the fiddle. For fiddle-based tunes you don’t go below the G string, and a mandola has no high E string, so you have to move up to second position for the highest notes, which I personally found inconvenient. YMMV, of course, but I suspect that might be why your friend finds his bouzouki more to his liking. The mandola fills an important role in consort music, where it takes the place of the viola as the alto voice. Maybe you’ll find some usefull tutors if you search along those lines.

Oh, and if you haven’t done so, do check out mandolincafe.com. They are the largest mandolin forum. Sort of the Chiff and Fipple of mandolins. You’re sure to find expert advice there.

3

Well, your two choices are: 1) learn tunes in the standard keys, adapting the fingering to suit the mandola, or 2) learn the tunes using mandolin fingering, letting the keys fall where they may. I’d say #2 would be easier, but there’s the pub-friendly thing gone. The only time I’ve had my mandola out to a session, there was either a viola or a capoed tenor banjo in attendance, so I could just transpose the tunes to the keys that fall easier on the mandola, rather than try to reinvent my playing to jam the tunes onto the poor old thing (I despair of trying to find a high B on there).

Do stick with that Mac’s Fancy idea; that is some of the best picking ever. To take the easy way, as per suggestion #2 above, just play it based on your open D string. If you had a mando instead, you’d be basing it on the open A string, which would lie where the D string is on the mandola. I’m going to go into the studio and try for fun, but I’m guessing that digging Mac’s fancy out of the mandola in the key of A will be less than a pleasure cruise. Good luck,

Rob

4

Hehe, thanks guys,
I’ll start picking away and see if I can get anywhere with mac’s fancy on the D-string :slight_smile:

Cheers;
E.

5

ok, so I’ve tried it out - of course it will take some practice but I’ll go at it now and then for a few weeks and we’ll see.

Just one thing: In DeDannan’s recording, they move directly into the mist-covered mountain.
I start mac’s fancy like this (6/8):

|-0-----2-0---|
|-0-4-0-0-0-5-|
|-------------|
|-------------|

..ok? Then they move into Mist-covered mountain,
|Add deg|add dCA| …
which is also based on D, but in Dm as opposed to Dmix (like mac’s fancy is).
That leaves me with the choice of either playing mist-covered very low, or ridiculously high up on the A string all the time…

What would you do? Am I starting off wrong playing mac’s fancy in Dmix?

Cheers;
E :slight_smile:

6

Go low, my son. The second note of the Mist Covered Mountain will be your open D string again; just carry on from there. Cheers,

Rob

7

Or you can just move over a string. Unlike guitars, mandos have the same interval between every string, unless you deliberately do otherwise. This means you can easily jump up or down by a fifth just by moving over, and you can start most trad tunes on at least two and usually three out of four courses without running out of room.

8

So,
S1m0n; you mean play it in Am instead?

Eivind

9

Another option is to capo at the 2nd fret which would give you DAEB. This is easy for Irish music, but give you the same limitations as a whistle, nothing below D. The advantage is has over GDAE tuning is the open B. John Carty, as an example, does this for tenor guitar, and I believe that Gerry O’Connor also does for tenor banjo.
The main thing to realize with this is that you’ll be getting the mandolin fingerings for tunes, but everything is shifted down a string.