Mandolin more difficult than guitar - cosmic truth!

[Nashville]

Well, after reading this forum for the past year or so I have come to this solid scientific conclusion based solely on my subjective analysis of forum threads: learning to be good on the mandolin is more difficult than learning to be good on a guitar. I know this because my experience jives with a bunch of other pickers here, so it should be carved in stone or ivoroid. The truth is not out there, but here in this forum.

Learning the mandolin takes much more practice, much more accuracy, much more muscle development, much more coordination, much more humor, much more beer for some folks, much more nail biting about picks, strings, hand position, how to learn, how to practice, what to do, what not to do, and a host of other concerns. Whereas guitar players just kinda go for it.

So the following conclusions can be drawn:
1) mandolin pickers should be paid more than the guitar player
2) mandolin pickers are sexier
3) mandolin pickers who started on mandolin at an early age and are really good now are flat out cheaters!
4) mandolin pickers that keep after it are true heroes
5) a lot of older dudes that played guitar for a thousand years and now have taken up mandolin have caused the glaciers to melt and raised sea levels
6) mandolin pickers should be paid more only if they started first on guitar!

I know it's hard to dispute this true science, but we all know it's true. What other conclusions can be drawn? Why is life so cruel? Why do I have to work so hard?!?!

[JeffD]

The real explanation, I think, is timing. Timing in life. Those who go from guitar to mandolin, started the guitar way back before it mattered to them much how good they were. They learned the chords and went and played with friends. Done. After a while the budding guitarist decides to not only learn songs, but learn guitar, and figure things out.

It is after this stage in guitar life, typically, that a guitarist goes to mandolin. And vowing to actually learn the mandolin, what they find is: Wow, this is harder than I remember learning guitar to be. That is, learning the mandolin is harder than learning the handful of guitar chords one needs as a youngster in order to play guitar with friends.

Just my take on it generalizing from those I play with and know.

[JeffD]

As to whether or not mandolin players are sexier, I am not sure. Back in the day one was unstoppable with guitar in hand playing Neil Young or James Taylor, and being emotionally unavailable. Times have changed.

Everyone I show that Avi Avital video to either wants to date him or wants to be him. So you might actually be right.

[T.D.Nydn]

The mandolin I feel is physically harder to play, but the guitar is harder to learn.you have two more strings to learn than the mandolin,and you can create up to 6 note chord structures on the guitar but only 4 on the mandolin.paganini played the guitar and used it for composing and called it his "constant companion".....please don't throw me off the forum,I have mas and mandolin craze love and all that since I was born,but that's how I feel...and when I say learn the guitar ,I'm not talking just led zepplin tunes,I'm talking miles Davis tunes...

[Pick&Grin]

I second #3!!!

[JeffD]

The mandolin I feel is physically harder to play, but the guitar is harder to learn.you have two more strings to learn than the mandolin,and you can create up to 6 note chord structures on the guitar but only 4 on the mandolin.

That is an excellent point. Your fingers are outnumbered before you begin. Also, the mandolin is tuning provides such incredible advantages to understanding what is going on.

[T.D.Nydn]

Jeff,,,yes you are so right,,the tuning on the mandolin makes complete sense,fingerboards are a bunch of dots to me,and when you lay them out on a mandolin,when you start playing in closed positions, you almost can't make a mistake.but,,,things the guitar can do: 1. Complete freedom because you learn to play in closed positions. 2.like I said,,I can create up to 6 note chord structures.3. I can do walking bass lines and chord inversions up the neck with them,,something that is very difficult or impossible on the mandolin.4.i have 24 frets on my guitar and utilize all of them cleanly. I'll stop here,,,but let me please implore everyone,,,I'm a freakin mandolin player also..I have the bad disease..I am not right in the head.i found a forum were others have this,like everyone on it,,and I feel better about my insane decisions.

[Bill13]

True. Mandolin requires much more attention to form. Both hands have to be precise, whereas the guitar is more forgiving. But getting it right on mandolin is joyous.

[T.D.Nydn]

This is so totally a fact..the small frets you must target precisely,the mandolin is a lot tougher on your pinkie,the guitar you can get sloppy on and get away with it,the mandolin brings out your flaws,there is no room for sloppy playing.a clean sounding mandolin is angelic,this one of the reasons why I am so in love with the instrument.

[Capt. E]

That is an excellent point. Your fingers are outnumbered before you begin. Also, the mandolin is tuning provides such incredible advantages to understanding what is going on.

Exactly! Also, guitar just never attracted me much. I mostly played harmonica and reed instruments. Being tuned in fifths made the mandolin easily understandable. Yes, it takes more precision, but I like that. Also, I love the high register and have always preferred female to male singers. Mandolins are flat out wonderful.

[T.D.Nydn]

Britney Spears over Sinatra? Yeah,o.k.,,mandolins can mess you up,you see, I love my wife very much,but the feelings I have for my mandolins run much higher....

[zedmando]

Being a seasoned guitar player and new mandolin player I don't know if I can say which one is harder.
I'd say it can vary from person to person.
While there are several difference in technique and approach, etc, Starting with one could be helpful.

If I had tried to learn both initially at around the same time I could tell you which it was for me, but when I started guitar I had 3 years of piano to bring over, when I started mandolin I have several years of guitar & bass as well--so while there are things that were still hard with mandolin, I can't say which is moreso.

[Dave Greenspoon]

Peshaw. Angst from guitarists. Start on a VIOLA as a kid and go to ANYTHING as an adult, including mandolin. THEN talk to me.

The neuroscience is absolute: learning to play an instrument and creating muscle memory while the neural patterns are developing can create a totally hardwired knowledge of the instrument. Generally it is easier to learn multiple instruments while young, than learning a first, or second instrument as an adult.

That said, the beauty of the mandolin is its own curse. Those perfect fifths make it great to move all around the fretboard. At the same time, the mechanics of chording on a guitar is so much easier, especially when talking about coloring a chord, not to mention capos.

[roysboy]

I agree 100% with everything everyone has said in this thread . Playing mandolin well , let alone brilliantly , is very, very difficult on so many levels .This little pipsqueak of an instrument has less sustain than a hackeysack and that's all you need to know to scare you off it for life . And yet , it doesn't scare us off it . We're the masochists of the music world. Not only do we drive ourselves mad trying to understand why we still suck after years of effort but we keep subjecting ourselves to the torture of that reality and we do it alongside a banjo much of the time . Tell me THAT'S not the definition of a masochist .

In particular , though , I'm in total agreement with the the post that posited that we ( mandolin players ) are sexier . I just did a gig on mandolin with a guitar player and a fiddle player and I can testify that the mandolin player was the sexiest of the three . No ...really .

[Ivan Kelsall]

Having 'dabbled' on guitar for over 20 years,i have to say that the mandolin,with it's incredibly more logical tuning,was far easier for me to learn with regard as to 'where to find the (sounds) notes' that i wanted. Hoilding a pick was a whole new thing as on acoustic guitar i'm a finger picker. The other thing that held my guitar playing back (& still does) is that i love almost every style of guitar playing out there & could never decide which style to really dig into.Consequently,i ended up playing no style at all. On banjo & now mandolin,it was always Bluegrass,so the path was clear.So,apart from my few electric excursions into 'ZZ Top' land or for a bit of a 'Dire Straits' thrash,my guitar playing is very limited,while my mandolin playing is so good,that i'm almost mediocre now,
Ivan

[Alex Orr]

The mandolin I feel is physically harder to play, but the guitar is harder to learn.you have two more strings to learn than the mandolin,and you can create up to 6 note chord structures on the guitar but only 4 on the mandolin.

I agree. I took up mandolin as a second instrument to guitar, but quickly found it easier to understand. Playing it just felt more natural.

[shins]

Mandolin is considerably easier for me. Guitar hurts your fingers WAY more. By the end of a concert or jam my fingers hurt quite a bit from guitar. Mandolin also takes a lot less finger strength and flexibility. Guitar has 2 more strings.... my vote is that guitar is inherently more difficult just because of heavier gauge strings, larger frets to stretch, and more strings to contend with.

[Bertram Henze]

That is an excellent point. Your fingers are outnumbered before you begin. Also, the mandolin is tuning provides such incredible advantages to understanding what is going on.

This is indeed what I found very offputting about the guitar in my youth, so I hardly played it at all... BUT: had I known back then that it was legal to turn it into a perfectly reasonable instrument by just retuning it to DADGAD, using a capo and giving up on strumming all the strings all the time, it might have turned out very different. Too late to turn back now, and looking back is useless.

[MysTiK PiKn]

Well, after reading this forum for the past year or so I have come to this solid scientific conclusion based solely on my subjective analysis of forum threads: learning to be good on the mandolin is more difficult than learning to be good on a guitar. I know this because my experience jives with a bunch of other pickers here, so it should be carved in stone or ivoroid. The truth is not out there, but here in this forum.

Learning the mandolin takes much more practice, much more accuracy, much more muscle development, much more coordination, much more humor, much more beer for some folks, much more nail biting about picks, strings, hand position, how to learn, how to practice, what to do, what not to do, and a host of other concerns. Whereas guitar players just kinda go for it.

So the following conclusions can be drawn:
1) mandolin pickers should be paid more than the guitar player
2) mandolin pickers are sexier
3) mandolin pickers who started on mandolin at an early age and are really good now are flat out cheaters!
4) mandolin pickers that keep after it are true heroes
5) a lot of older dudes that played guitar for a thousand years and now have taken up mandolin have caused the glaciers to melt and raised sea levels
6) mandolin pickers should be paid more only if they started first on guitar!

I know it's hard to dispute this true science, but we all know it's true. What other conclusions can be drawn? Why is life so cruel? Why do I have to work so hard?!?!

So subjectively excellent, and so expressive of the valuable realization that our own subjective experience of the cosmic truth is, in fact, the only true reality. As we are gathered here in this immense fragment of the local universe, these points made are to indeed be treasured by all. And the expressive vocality of whatever I'm talking about is cosmically reflected in the VERY SOUND of the instrument we, as brothers in light and life and love do joyfully play.

But what's all this "IT'S TOO HARD" kinda talk. I pick up the revered instrument, and strum with no fingering, and the announcement of available fun and infinite sexiness is instantly delivered from the infinite cosmos of the angelic realms - it is they who call us to play on, to attempt, to struggle, to consult the dam chord book, again, again, again, and move on as the music will perhaps pause, but never await our efforts more than a couple of beats. It is the same in all cases, regardless of instrument, namely once you get a few lessons down, you're good to go. Lest we forget, we play this because it's fun, because it sounds so way too cool, it is sexy - no secret there - and it evokes the cosmic infiniteness of the absolute itself. What part of this don't you experience at some time, or even all times, that you play. You play as you play because you have not heard any better sounds in your mind, and yet when you have, or when you do, you do play those sounds, as you will seek them out. Remember, you know more than you know you know. Cosmic, spirited, subjective remembrance of limitlessness. All else is mere illusion - until this moment here and now. You can fly. There are no wrong notes on the mandolin. You have made them perfectly. Enjoy. Peace. And strum those notes of great height. And cry as it transports your being to a place of no possible description. You know what I am saying. We all know it. And it is that endless pursuit that bring us here now. We have heard.

[bruce.b]

The tenor guitar splits the differences nicely between mandolin and guitar. Many of the advantages and disadvantages of both. My tenor, tuned GDAE, has taken over my musical life. It's all I play anymore, so much so that I'm going to sell my mandolins. It's the first instrument I've ever been completely satisfied with.

[Marylander]

I've got a little different take on this. I'm just new on mandolin but have played clarinet, piano (was a piano performance major for awhile back in college - ended up switching to something more 'practical'), guitar, sax, uke, bass, etc. My assessment of musical instruments in general is that there are some that are easy to get up to speed on and sound ok (e.g., clarinet, guitar) and some that are difficult to get up to speed on and sound ok (e.g., violin) but that pretty much every instrument has about the same difficulty in mastering. That is, once you're past 'journeyman' level on any given instrument making it to virtuoso status is the same steep climb. It's because music is so much more than the technical side of things. Just my opinion.

[Denny Gies]

Should I walk to school or carry my lunch?

[Bertram Henze]

Should I walk to school or carry my lunch?

Yes, because it's colder at night than outside.

[Tobin]

The tenor guitar splits the differences nicely between mandolin and guitar. Many of the advantages and disadvantages of both. My tenor, tuned GDAE, has taken over my musical life. It's all I play anymore, so much so that I'm going to sell my mandolins. It's the first instrument I've ever been completely satisfied with.

I agree, the tenor guitar, whether tuned CGDA or GDAE, is a great compromise between the logical fifths-tuning of the mandolin and the larger, deeper-voiced, easier-to-play guitar (and this is true of the mandola and octave mandolin too, for the same reasons). But the compromise has its drawbacks.

On a longer-scale instrument like the guitar, it does seem to work better for me to have it tuned in fourths so it doesn't require as much stretching. Chord shapes are just easier to reach, and ascending/descending runs are easier when crossing over to the next string if you only have 5 frets to concern yourself with, rather than 7 frets on a fifths-tuned instrument. So while I love the logic of tuning in fifths, it just seems more suited to a shorter-scale instrument for those of us who don't have gargantuan sized hands. Maybe my problem is that I try to play the tenor guitar like I would play a mandolin, and it just doesn't work due to the long scale.

And while the tenor guitar does have a nice deep guitar-ish voice, it just lacks the richness and brilliance of the full chords that you can get on a 6-string guitar. When I play chords on the tenor guitar, I always end up a little disappointed and end up switching over to the 6-string. So in that respect, the tenor guitar seems to be a decent filler instrument but can't truly replace a regular guitar for chording.

[Timbofood]

Difficulty is directly proportional to desire to play. Huge generality but, think about it; if you want to play the mandolin but you are forced to play something else, that something else will be a giant hurdle. If you have the drive to play the guitar, you will not find it as daunting as playing the tuba! Also, I have a friend who played tuba and said it was a lot easier to get girls with the guitar but, that's a side point.
Difficulty is all in attitude, you have to have the desire or it will just be a challenge which you hate.
I must admit, Jeff may have the right outlook as far as finger to string ratio though, excellent point!