I have heard that whatever one does on a fiddle can be done on a mandolin.
That’s what a mando teacher told me, anyhow, but he didn’t play ITM.
Well, fiddlers play cuts, taps and rolls. Can one do this on a mandolin?
It seems that a continuous sound, as in fiddle or flute, certainly helps
in playing these ornaments.
On plucked strings, cuts are just pull-offs, taps are hammer-ons, and rolls a combination of the two. So technically, why not. But it’s more idiomatic to substitute fiddle-style doubles and trebles. And since those ornaments are really articulation enhancements, and mando is very articulated already, there’s not as much need. As on other strings, pull-offs and hammer-ons are as conditioned by phrasing and fingering considerations as by imitation of wind and fiddle ornaments. IMO.
Actually, I find full rolls quite hard on mandolin. It’s the high string tension.
If I were to roll on guitar (which I don’t because I’m crap on guitar anyway) I could do it with one pluck and then just hammer and pull-off as required: the instrument has low enough tension, enough sustain and resonance for it. On mandolin I find either the sustain or my technique - or both - are not up to it. On mando and tenor banjo I’d be more likely to rely on picked triplets etc.
Cut and tap analogues are no prob. Same with sliding.
I think the key to doing rolls on the mando is to pick the last note. Viz: downstroke, hammer-on, pulloff back to the original note, pulloff to the open string, upstroke on the original note. Works for me.
I often use a cut/left-hand-pizzicato to articulate the middle note of a triplet. It sounds nicer and doesn’t screw up my picking pattern.