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Thread: Opening Mandolin Lick for Thunder Dan

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    Registered User IndyGuitarMan's Avatar
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    Default Opening Mandolin Lick for Thunder Dan

    Does anyone know how to play the opening lick on the mandolin for Thunder Dan. Our mandolin player is having a hard time getting it right. Thank you!

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    Professional Dreamer journeybear's Avatar
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    Default Re: Opening Mandolin Lick for Thunder Dan

    This here? Or something else? Because he pretty much shows what he's doing, almost from the start.

    But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller

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    Registered User IndyGuitarMan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Opening Mandolin Lick for Thunder Dan

    Yes that is it, but it is a little hard to tell what strings and where he is fretting.

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    Professional Dreamer journeybear's Avatar
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    Default Re: Opening Mandolin Lick for Thunder Dan

    Alrighty then! I'll take a stab at it.

    So, the song is in B, or Bm. (You'll see the guitarist play a G chord capoed at the 4th fret.) It looks like what the mandolinist is doing is fretting just the two middle strings at the 4th and 5th frets - 0450. He's letting the top and bottom strings ring open. The movement you see from his other fingers is him stopping the strings in a modified chop, or a combined ring/chop technique. That's a pretty cool effect. It would sound awful in regular tuning, so I'm guessing he's in some kind of open tuning. Maybe the bottom string is tuned down a half step to F#, and the top string is tuned down a whole step to D, both of those notes being in the Bm triad.

    Hope that helps!
    But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller

    Furthering Mandolin Consciousness

    Finders Keepers, my duo with the astoundingly talented and versatile Patti Rothberg. Our EP is finally done, and available! PM me, while they last!

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    Default Re: Opening Mandolin Lick for Thunder Dan

    That opening chord sounds to me like 470. That’s two tones of a B7. B at the 4th fret on the G string, A (the 7) at the 7th fret on the D string, and another A on the open A string. So it’s a B-A-A. The two A’s gives it that open jangly sound. I think it is standard tuning.
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