Hi Everyone,
I recently picked up a Mandolin; I have no musical background or knowledge but I saw a mandolin somewhere and got it in my head to learn how to play it.
I picked up a cheap Mandolin from my local music store (a Denver A style) and found that the bridge wasn't attached properly (it was sitting on a piece of foam, I suppose to prevent scratching during shipping).
I removed the foam and while trying to set the bridge I snapped some of the strings that shipped with the mandolin, so I picked up some Ernie Ball Earthwood 80/20 Light strings (9-34, by the way, one of the strings is marked as 0.022w, what does the "w" mean? wound? aren't all base strings wound?) which were luckily some of the last strings my local store had in stock.
Anyways, I was able to set the bridge so that all the strings (GDAE) were intonating properly at the 12th fret, though the bridge looks a tad slanted. Only the G string(s) buzz when I pick really hard, other than that it sounds great and hold tune great, for a cheap little mandolin!
So I have a few questions; I hope you'll indulge me:
1) The A and E strings (E mainly though) are really loud and "pingy". I've seen this referred to as "bright" and I can definitely hear it when I listen to mandolin videos on YouTube, but I find the sound really gets to me after a while, is there a way I can make the A and E strings less shrill? Would thicker strings, like say 10/14 or 11/15 remove some of the shrill-ness or high pitched-ness of those strings? They'd still be tuned to A and E but would they be in a lower octave because of thickness of the strings? I don't plan on playing Bluegrass or Folk style music, I don't intend to gig with my mandolin, nor do I care about the loudness, if anything i'd prefer it to be less loud just to prevent the ire of my neighbours.
2) I've checked out Mandolessons.com and a few other online tutorial sites, but are there books that are recommended for newbies like me with no musical background at all? I'd like to be able to learn rudimental music notation so I can read music, but I don't want to get bogged down by it. I bought the mandolin because I liked the size and thought it would be neat to play. I'll also eventually want to learn guitar and figured that the Mandolin would be a great place to start and then transfer my skills to the guitar, eventually.
Thanks, and Happy New Year!
Bookmarks