I would say it depends what you mean by "Get by on it". This may not be what you meant but if someone says to me, "I can get by on guitar", I assume they're really a singer and play guitar to back up their singing. That's because the most common use of an acoustic guitar is to back up a singer. If this is what you mean then, yes, the mandolin is more difficult. That's because the mandolin is not principally chosen for its capability to back up a singer, it's chosen for its capability to play melody. Tuned as it is, like a violin, it works very well for melody, and I'd say better than guitar (at least for traditional dance music). So playing the guitar often means backing a song, and playing the mandolin often means playing melody. The latter is more difficult (but very rewarding, maybe even more rewarding). Of course there are guitarists that play melodies extremely well on guitar, and mandolinists that play very complex accompaniments, but that's at a level that few ppl get to.
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