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Thread: How high do you go

  1. #1
    Registered User John Bertotti's Avatar
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    Default How high do you go

    Out of curiosity, I was playing around way above the 12 fret. I can cleanly fret with some effort using my pinky up to the 20th fret on the E string and A string a bit of stretching up to 19 sometimes 20 on the G and D. Above that it doesn't sound good and I have no reason to be there. Do any of you actually play that high up the fretboard on any string? Is it just tradition to have the board extend farther? I could easily live with an instrument, mine is an oval A from OldWave very much like an old Gibson, without the higher frets. But will I find I want them as I progress farther? And no I am not going to change my instrument to get rid of them. They are there to stay. Just curious as to how much use or how practical they really are to those who play a lot more than I do.
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    Modern 'Classical' composers seem to find a use for anything you can do with or to an instrument, and I guess the dusty end of the mandolin fretboard gives them a sonic palette similar to where you fall off the piano stool?

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    Registered User Simon DS's Avatar
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    I’m not too interested in that end of the fretboard, but another 2 or 3 frets at the other end for a mandolin would be sweet!

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    Default Re: How high do you go

    There are a few tunes that I like to add some color and play the melody in 3 or 4 different places on the neck. In those instances I will go to the 15th fret.
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  5. #5
    Registered User John Bertotti's Avatar
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    On all the strings or mainly just the highest two?
    My avatar is of my OldWave Oval A

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    Professional Dreamer journeybear's Avatar
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    Those frets are sort of like cops. It's nice to know they're there but most of the time I don't need them, I get along fine without them, but if I need them, they're available. I guess I could have said "fair-weather friends" or some such, but that's not as funny.

    I generally don't venture up there, though I have on occasion gone up to the C or D on the E string. That's rare, and would be in the heat of the moment in a live performance, wherein the unexpected and unplanned may well occur, and would depend on the key. But in some of my songs such ventures are part of the plan.

    I have a shuffle in D in which the lead goes up to a quick accent using the A above the octave (fret 17). I have a slow blues in E which ventures up to a wow moment on the B above the octave (fret 19). In another song the intro/traveling riff is Am Am F G, and for the coda/fade I keep moving this up the neck to its final position with the Am at 14-14-15-17. This is thematically important, as the title is "Bluebird" and the effect is supposed to evoke flying "right up into the sky," as the line says. Lastly, I have a song which begins with a riff in Am/Em then modulates by a full step to a verse in Bm, second verse in C#m, and final riff in D#m. That's 11-13-13-14.

    Single notes are easier to finger cleanly than chords, of course. I mention these instances because they are parts of the composition, as well as the arrangement, so I have to go there. Bear in mind, when fingering these high frets, that you don't have to fit your fingers between the frets. What your fingertips are doing below the frets doesn't matter, as long as you don't go above the frets. I find myself having to explain this to audience members who ask about this, though players should know this already. But I thought I'd leave no question, so I went the Captain Obvious route here.
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  7. #7
    Registered User John Bertotti's Avatar
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    Ah and there you have it! I have not found a reason to go above about 15 on the G or D and 15 on the A and in one rare moment 19 on the E. Now classical may use much more but honestly I don’t get the beat tone consistently on the two lowest strings above 17 and on the A and E 19 seems to be my limit for clean fretting and nice tone on that string. I have to use my pinky above the 15 for whatever reason my ring finger doesn’t do well. To weak? Can’t be to big I have small slim hands and finger. Technique is probably a big part of it though.

    I can’t remember who I was watching but they went down to Florida in their playing and it sounded good. I need to practice a lot more!
    My avatar is of my OldWave Oval A

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    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    On the one mandolin I own with a full upper register...I do use those notes!

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    Registered User Bruce Clausen's Avatar
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    I know they exist, but I've never played a piece or an orchestra part for mandolin that went above G or A (17th fret), and in my jazz playing that is about as far as I need to go. But I remember Paul Hostetter posting once about a musician whose instrument (was it a mandolin, or maybe a guitar?) needed refretting every year, and Paul said every fret was totally trashed, and under every string. I've sometimes what kind of music that player was playing.

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    Default Re: How high do you go

    Quote Originally Posted by Bruce Clausen View Post
    ...I remember Paul Hostetter posting once about a musician whose instrument (was it a mandolin, or maybe a guitar?) needed refretting every year, and Paul said every fret was totally trashed, and under every string. I've sometimes what kind of music that player was playing.
    Maybe he was in Spinal Tap, playing his electric guitar with a mandolin?

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  12. #11
    Registered User Frankdolin's Avatar
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    I don't go there too often, but I would sure miss them if they were gone!

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    Default Re: How high do you go

    I was once doing an electric mando slide outro with some friends at a jam and did a portamento slide up to the 2nd octave E (24th fret if this electric mando had one). It sounded great to end the song on such a high note and left everybody smiling. I don't get many opportunities to use it.

    Len B.
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    Distressed Model John Ritchhart's Avatar
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    Sometimes I want to sound like a woodpecker on a tin roof, but not very often. I have gone up to the high D on the E string on Kentucky Waltz but only because Grisman did it.
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    I don't often play up there, but when I do, I use dos ojos! (That's both eyes. ) Stay careful, my friends.

    Quote Originally Posted by lenf12 View Post
    I was once doing an electric mando slide outro with some friends at a jam and did a portamento slide up to the 2nd octave E (24th fret if this electric mando had one). It sounded great to end the song on such a high note and left everybody smiling.
    Sounds like that would have been akin to that swell note Dickey Betts hits at the end of "Ramblin' Man" - but two octaves higher!
    But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller

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    Default Re: How high do you go

    I personally feel like anything above 15 or 17 is beyond my use. I sometimes dream of a mandolin that stops at 17 just to have the tonal palate of being able to get my right hand to really dig in to the strings where there are usually a bunch of frets in the way.

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    Registered User Tom Wright's Avatar
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    My Buchanan 10-string stops at 17, and I rarely use even that, 15 being the likely limit. Even on my 20-fret electric I rarely use even the 15. More likely I'll use 13 for a high F on a jazz tune, but rarely.

    For a recent album, the highest note I played was a 12th-fret E on a choro.
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    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    Quote Originally Posted by Bruce Clausen View Post
    I know they exist, but I've never played a piece or an orchestra part for mandolin that went above G or A (17th fret),
    Some of the music by writers like Calace and Munier goes past the 24th fret in some passages. I can't recall exactly right now, sorry.

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    Default Re: How high do you go

    I don't often go above the 15th-17th fret but I'm sure there's a contemporary classical composer who's laughing as he notates out the high E on the 24th fret.
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    Registered User T.D.Nydn's Avatar
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    Quote Originally Posted by T.D.Nydn View Post
    Click image for larger version. 

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ID:	194070 range of notes on Calaces 2 preludio...
    Thanks, that was one of the pieces I was thinking of (and not remembering) when I made my last post.

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  26. #21

    Default Re: How high do you go

    I use the whole fretboard, but not a lot. On my banjolin, I can just keep playing up past the fretboard, if I hit hard and have my fretting finger in the right place.

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: How high do you go

    I play often times above the 15th fret, very rarely required to play 20 or above. I routinely practice up there however. Scales, arpeggios, and general messing around. Mandolins are not cheap, I want all the mandolin I can get.
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