Re: Is GDAE tuning is a random invention?
Originally Posted by
Capt. E
... No one ever says a violin is tuned backwards.
Yeah, but nobody ever complains that the G-chop chord is difficult on a violin. (Okay, so they're too smart to even try, but I had to say it!)
FWIW, that "backwards" string arrangement (I prefer "mirror image") DID help me get the basic mandolin chord formations pretty quickly. I guess that's because "a formation is a formation" and doesn't care about the progression of notes up the scale, just the selection of notes.
What probably sped me along more was realizing (only after the light went on about mirror-image chords) that the D & E strings are played and read exactly the same as on guitar, while the G & A strings have the same note arrangement as guitar but in different octaves. And yes, I do realize that guitar sounds an octave lower than it's notated, but that has little to do with learning the mandolin fretboard.
- Ed
"Then one day we weren't as young as before
Our mistakes weren't quite so easy to undo
But by all those roads, my friend, we've travelled down
I'm a better man for just the knowin' of you."
- Ian Tyson
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