Originally Posted by
maxr
Thanks for all this guys, this is really interesting. A question - do ornaments in Irish music on mandolin tend to be 'all picked' more than in say triplets in bluegrass? The reason I ask is that if hammers and pulloffs are common in whatever kind of music you're playing, then it might be easier (at least in theory) to keep your groups of 3 notes all starting on a down pick. If every note in a decoration is picked, more difficult?
Also - it used to be that classically trained violinists tended to be 'downbow heavy', so many had a Pavlovian trained reaction to try to play a down bow whenever a strong emphasis was indicated. I did this at the age of 20 for those reasons, whatever kind of music I played. A lot later I started to swing and syncopate tunes more , and I found situations where up bow accents were unavoidable. About that time I got into listening to and watching viol music, and I saw violists using up bows for the stronger accents. Then I met people who could disconnect their left and right hands and accent whatever direction bow they wanted. Seems to me there's a direct parallel here with mandolin picking - if you learn to accent either direction stroke whenever you want, you don't have to worry about this issue. So, I find my up and down mandolin strokes can be equal volume or accents - but I suspect the sound I make on each is currently different. That's another topic...