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Playing a funky oval-hole scroll-body mandolin, several mandolins retuned to CGDA, three CGDA-tuned Flatiron mandolas, two Flatiron mandolas tuned as octave mandolins,and a six-course 25.5" scale CGDAEB-tuned Ovation Mandophone.
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A few thoughts:
The split-string technique isn't nearly as hard as everyone thinks. It's mostly a matter of getting your fingernails the right length and shape. And forget wide fingerboards, you need narrow.
Ukulele is an interesting example -- small and loud, with single strings. Maybe it's the light construction, which allows low string tension to move a lot of air. There are also plenty of examples of single-course mandolins; if they are designed for it they can be loud, too. I suspect double courses evolved as an attempt to double the string energy, but that's a tradeoff since higher tension means you also need heavier construction.
Tremolo technique -- I think this can be confusing because we often don't define our terms clearly. "Tremolo" is often defined as fast alternate picking, but a lot of players would say it's a different technique entirely. For tremolo I usually rotate my pick away, so it's less perpendicular to the mandolin top (and pointed 45 degrees toward the ceiling). That way it's easy to contact two strings on the way down, and one string on the way up. It's a different mechanism, where instead of moving the pick with the wrist, you're allowing the wrist to move mostly by kinetic energy generated by the wrist/arm mechanism. Marilynn Mair has described this well in her method book. It's also in the historical Bickford and Pettine methods, and at least hinted at (by describing the raised wrist position) in the Calace method.
Exploring Classical Mandolin (Berklee Press, 2015)
Progressive Melodies for Mandocello (KDP, 2019) (2nd ed. 2022)
New Solos for Classical Mandolin (Hal Leonard Press, 2020)
2021 guest artist, mandocello: Classical Mandolin Society of America
A few years ago, I owned a mandola with single strings instead of double courses. It was a pre-TOH Breedlove custom order, "Radim Zenkl" model designed for fingerstyle playing. It's much easier to play fingerstyle if you're not getting your fingernails hung up in the double courses. To compensate for the lower attack of fingerstyle, it had a humbucker pickup at the end of the fingerboard. Otherwise it looked identical to Breedlove's standard double-course mandolin models. I assume the carving of the archtop and bracing was the same.
When it wasn't plugged in, that mandola didn't put out much volume when played with either fingers *or* a flatpick. I ended up selling it, because I decided I didn't like the humbucker tone (too much like playing a jazz guitar), and it didn't have enough useful acoustic output even if I wanted to mic it.
Maybe single strings could drive a flat-top mandolin or mandola more efficiently. But at least with this one example of an archtop mandolin, single strings weren't enough to drive the soundboard acoustically.
Split String, for me, have the most usefulness on the G and D pairs. play 3 note chords on two courses. You can also play some harmony lines with splits in 1st position and avoid the shifts up the neck to grab some of the doublestops.
I'll use some on the unwound strings to add color tones to a chord, for example ... 00 - 00 - 02 - 33 gives you a nice G add 9 voicing.
The BEST and fattest C major chord you can play is 05-55-33-00
Splitting on the unwound strings will take its toll on your nails fairly fast, and for that reason, you may want to limit how much you do it. You can coat the nails with acrylic nail polish to toughen them a little, but polishing them with toothpaste is probably better. This is a prison trick to harden the nails into claws that won't break off as easily,... or so I've been told. !
NH
Just a correction here: rasqueados are not a tremolo device but rather variations of "strums" with various syncopations. The flamenco and classical gtr tremolo involve rapid execution on single strings (typically), as for mndln tremolo, but is not rasqueado. It's simply tremolo technique.
Swift string crossing with flatpick on wide string spacing (such as gtr) is routinely executed in oud technique.
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