Mandolin calluses do not equal guitar calluses

[John Garcia]

I'm just sayin'. I played guitar for a long time and had nice calluses built up. Today, I went to a jam, and there was a much more talented mandolinist, a banjo player, a fiddle player, and me. I said I'd be happy to play guitar, since I brought mine along. Boy howdy, do my fingers hurt tonight. All those calluses I used to have disappeared during the last few months while I was just playing mandolin.

I think I may need to mix it up more often....

[David Lewis]

and then banjo callouses - and nylon string ones, and electric ones...

and I get told by young smart alecks that 'it's got frets, I can play it...'.

Yeah... no.

[Astro]

Yeah, so true. I switch it up a lot.

-At my main jam I am often frustrated because I want to introduce a new song for my mates to play along with me and I have to do it on guitar so they can follow since they dont read mando chord progressions.(For introducing new songs, we just follow each others hands by sight but I'm the only mando player). But then I cant use the mando leads I've worked out so they never get to hear it the way I want. So then I have to go back and learn the leads on guitar which is harder because the strings are so slow to react. But its made me a better guitar player.

-What is funny to me is that if I learn a song on guitar, I can tell you the chord progression. If I learn it on mando, I sometimes struggle to recount the chord progression to others. I am finding that on mando I often play stuff that I never assimilate what it is into my consciousness. I just play it so dont ask me any questions please. Sometimes I'll play a song on mando and someone will ask me to do it on guitar so they can strum along and all of a sudden I've got to break my song book out so I can remember how to do it on guitar. So weird !

-When learning new songs, I can just look at the guy playing and copy his hands on my guitar. On mando, its slower and more limited, but I can transfer this "hand reading" so that I watch someone on guitar and copy the progression on my mando. Thats taken some time and I'm slowly getting there. But I cant seem to watch someone play mando and copy them on either instrument. Its way slower. Weird. I guess its that everything is upside down and backwards when you watch them play and I long ago got over it with guitar because of all the practice but its starting over again on mando. ?

[Mandomonte]

I have actually had my guitar calluses cut on the sides and one come half off when switching to mandolin and then there is the mandocello.

[UsuallyPickin]

When I first took up with mandolin it was difficult for me to put a guitar down and pick up a mandolin and play it. My brain went into fart mode when everything became "backwards". It took several years to " just do it" . I have a similar though different problem with a bow and a pick...... it's just a different mind set. Calluses I don't have a problem with unless you count having to use an emery board on them occasionally. I do have to be careful not to over play , meaning play with too much grip when I move from one instrument to the next. Each has a different touch..... banjo is probably the easiest on fingers for a fretted instrument......... and having the high string under my thumb will remain a mind &^%$ ...... R/

[EdHanrahan]

Astro, you have described my world of a few years ago! Here's an encouraging thought: Switch 'em up often enough, and eventually (1) your brain sorts it out and the fingers get there almost automatically, and (2) the calluses also sort it out and say, "Oh strings, that's cool!"

OTOH, I do get screwed up on the rare occasion of playing tiple (a MUCH fun cross between ukulele & 12-string guitar). With 4 courses of multiple strings, and in the heat of "battle", the fingers want to revert to mandolin shapes and ...

[Tom Morse]

[QUOTE=golfunit;1316539]Boy howdy, do my fingers hurt tonight. All those calluses I used to have disappeared during the last few months while I was just playing mandolin.

A close look at my mandolin callouses shows a distinct two-string indentation. Whenever I've gone back to the guitar, my fingers always stung, and I've surmised that it's because the guitar string winds up dead center in the calloused two-string indentation. It's there, perhaps, that the flesh is weak.

[David Lewis]

[QUOTE=Tom Morse;1316637]

Boy howdy, do my fingers hurt tonight. All those calluses I used to have disappeared during the last few months while I was just playing mandolin.

A close look at my mandolin callouses shows a distinct two-string indentation. Whenever I've gone back to the guitar, my fingers always stung, and I've surmised that it's because the guitar string winds up dead center in the calloused two-string indentation. It's there, perhaps, that the flesh is weak.

As long as the spirit is willing...

[High Lonesome Valley]

During my luthier production days I would often cut right through my calluses with a razor. Crazy glue and masking tape and I would be playing full sets the same night.

I guess you could call that a composite callus.

[lorrainehornig]

I had some pretty substantial calluses from playing my mandolin...until I switched to Thomastik classical strings. My calluses disappeared...then I got another mandolin with D'Addario strings and those calluses are returning. My instructor told me that people callus differently. His wife develops calluses and he doesn't...from playing the same instrument. Of course, I'm sure finger pressure figures into the equation.

[Pasha Alden]

I may be wrong, but I find guitar calluses form on a different place on the finger to mandolin? I see that especially with my braille reading hand, which just had to, due to the working of Murphy's law, be the left hand! I thought that I would start to read much slower, however, somehow the part of the finger that has the callus is not closely linked to my reading braille.

[bratsche]

I had some pretty substantial calluses from playing my mandolin...until I switched to Thomastik classical strings. My calluses disappeared...then I got another mandolin with D'Addario strings and those calluses are returning. My instructor told me that people callus differently. His wife develops calluses and he doesn't...from playing the same instrument. Of course, I'm sure finger pressure figures into the equation.

People callus differently - that's correct. All calluses do not appear as obvious as some do, like those described as rough-looking and sometimes requiring maintenance. They can simply be invisible, with your fingertips still being generously, but softly, padded. To say that your calluses disappeared, or that some people never get them at all, is rather doubtful... they may just be the latter type. Your fingertips must grow themselves some kind of protection for the arduous job of playing, otherwise they would blister and/or bleed. My fingertips do not appear callused to a casual observer, but people can tell they are by touching them. When I play, they pick up the visible imprint of two strings or one string, depending on if I'm playing a mandola or a viola, which will linger afterward for an hour (at most), before leveling out and altogether disappearing.

bratsche

[RichM]

During my luthier production days I would often cut right through my calluses with a razor. Crazy glue and masking tape and I would be playing full sets the same night.

I guess you could call that a composite callus.

Laminate.

[Pasha Alden]

Interesting thread.
I think I have the latter kind of calluses mentioned. My calluses do not show to the casual viewer, however, but are detected by touch only. Mercifully they are also not on the flattest or most inner part of the finger pad, the part that does the braille reading. So talk about having the best of both worlds? Playing music or reading my favourite book? <smile>

[Grateful Dawg]

Even though I seem to have some good calluses built up, when I play guitar the index finger really gets bitten by the high G string, and I also find producing good sounds on the bottom G and D strings are harder than producing sounds on the high strings. The mandolin E string cuts into the index finger somewhat also, but doesn't seem as harsh as the guitar string.

[MikeEdgerton]

One of the things I noticed years ago when I took up the mandolin was that the forty some years of guitar callouses I had were on the tips of my fingers and the mandolin callouses were more around the corner on the sides of my fingertips. I attribute that to the smaller fretboard and neck and a difference in the angle that I approach each instrument at. YMMV.

[mrmando]

Ain't nothing like string bass calluses.

[JeffD]

Got a four string emando, and it was as if I had to start from square one. It took me a while get callous enough to play without pain. I only hope I use it enough to not have to go through this ever time.

[Ky Slim]

The movement from the guitar open G chord with a fretted 3rd fret on the B string, to the open D chord and back makes the tip of my ring finger sting A LOT. No joke, it actually feels like the string is cutting thru the callus. Sometimes I choose not to use a capo for the tunes in A because I need a break from these G and D chords. I don't seem to remember having this issue when the guitar was my primary instrument.

Could this be kind of like to the concept of laying on a bed of nails? Maybe the "squeeze area" when fretting 2 string course is wider so the force is split up a little more than fretting a single guitar sting. ???

[Russ Donahue]

JeffD -
Don't ever let your culluses get callous....
Just saying.
Russ

[JeffD]

JeffD -
Don't ever let your culluses get callous....
Just saying.
Russ

[CWRoyds]

Yes, Mandolin does not create calluses like the steel string guitar.
That is for sure.
BUT both these instruments have NOTHING on the Sitar in terms of calluses.
When I started to study sitar I thought I would be fine because I had hard guitar calluses.
After my first lesson I realized I was sorely mistaken.

Check out the calluses on the tips of Ravi Shankar's fingers on his left hand, and the calluses made by the Mizrab (Metal finger pick) on the index finger of his right hand.
When I am practicing a lot, I have these deep ruts in my finger tips. They are supported by deep and very hard calluses underneath. The sitar is a painful instrument to play.

[Charles E.]

Ain't nothing like string bass calluses.

Reminds me of a fantastic bass player I met at Mt. Airy, years ago. By saturday night his calluses were peeling flesh, and I mean ribbons.

[zedmando]

Many of my guitar callouses are from bending strings--which I have tried on mandolin.
But obviously you can't stretch them as much on a mandolin.
My callouses are fine with each--and with bass--which I mostly played yesterday.

[DavidKOS]

Ain't nothing like string bass calluses.

BUT both these instruments have NOTHING on the Sitar in terms of calluses.
When I started to study sitar I thought I would be fine because I had hard guitar calluses.
After my first lesson I realized I was sorely mistaken.

Check out the calluses on the tips of Ravi Shankar's fingers on his left hand, and the calluses made by the Mizrab

I only dabbled at sitar, but I do play a few Afghan lutes that use a mizrab, and it ain't no fun....sort of like metal dobro picks on steroids.

As for string bass calluses, I began playing bass in 9th grade, and those big calluses it develops - plus the finger strength - made guitar and mandolin seem easy, well at least easier.