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Post by vikingblues on Jan 18, 2014 8:04:55 GMT
....nice to hear it being played. I am not a mandolin owner or player (yet), but to me it sounded good. You have done well in such a short time. Well done.  I'm relieved it came across OK. It's easy to confuse hope and reality when playing a new instruments and kid yourself it's going well. I enjoyed the sound of your mandolin vikingblues, and it seems you're getting the hang of it already - nice one.  I still find an A major chord of 2245 is a bit of a handful for me after many years of trying. So I hardly ever play that shape unless absolutely ncessary, and tend to use 6700 a lot or 2200 (which is really A5, neither major nor minor) instead. have you tried those? Either would work fine in Ashokan Farewell. Keith Appreciate your encouragement Keith, and thanks for the suggested chords. I did find the 2245 A chord was easy going from an 0023 G if I used the 2nd and 3rd fingers for fretting the G, but going from the 2002 D it was a bit trickier! The much smaller fretboard compared to guitar is the main challenge at the moment. Thankfully I've got quite thin fingers - and at least I can maybe avoid extreme stretches which is what brings on arthritic twinges when playing guitar. Can't help specifically, but I do remember that there were a lot of very similar East German mandolins out there in the '70s, retailing at the budget end of the market. I remember buying a second hand one labelled Musima for 15 quid from Camden market. It was a pig to fret but sang true enough and was really loud! Regarding chords, another two finger A that's useful is 6200, with 5200 to form an A minor sitting only a fret away. Might be a good idea to work on 2245 occasionally though, because it's so easy to form all sorts of A variants out of there with little movement, such as Amin (2235), A7 (2243), Amin6 (0045) - a creepy inversion, known to scare horses and attract sheep - and Amin7 (2233), plus the closed shapes are moveable and lend themselves to rhythmic "chunking" techniques. I'll add that with that same second fret barre down you can also finger other shapes, like a G6 (4253) and an Emin (4223). The mandolin is a very accommodating instrument. I have a feeling that at least my Dad went for one of the more upmarket examples of the GDR mandolins of the time. Certainly it feels decent to play (except it seems so small). Useful info on chords - many thanks for the info. I'm enjoying this mandolin experience much more than I thought I would! |
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