Re: Overwhelmed beginner - merging of styles/genres?
Originally Posted by
CarlM
The biggest differences between guitar and mandolin, aside from the higher pitch of the mandolin, that affect how you approach the instrument are the sustain and the greater range of timbre or tonalities you can get out of a guitar. The sustain of a guitar allows you to ring pitches together creating shimmering cascades of sound in crosspicking and fingerpicking and to establish drone tones that affect harmony. Both of these things are more difficult to do and are achievable to a lesser degree on the mandolin. The greater sustain allows the guitarist to fill up the middle in a way the mandolin cannot. Conversely the guitarist has to work harder to achieve sharp rhythmic effects. The range of tonality allows you to wring sounds out of a guitar that are not there on mandolin. On the other side the mandolinist can create a sharp, rhythmic attack that establishes the beat or backbeat much more distinctly.
The fifths tuning pushes you toward a different use of double stops. Double stops that fall under your fingers on mandolin are difficult and require longer stretches on guitar and vice versa. The "floaty" type of double stop on a guitar with the open string in the middle does not work nearly as well on mandolin. Tremolo works much better on mandolin than guitar. The higher pitch of the mandolin rises over the crowded middle of the sound spectrum. The more logical fretboard arrangement of the mandolin gravitates toward better use of melody.
For these and a lot of other reasons, it is much better to approach mandolin as its own instrument and forget about copying guitar licks and being a little guitar.
I love your take on this, CarlM. Well said.
My rather rudimentary technique means I stick to pretty much straight melodies on mandolin and just occasionally grab a double-stop when it's convenient/easy and sits well in the tune as a point of emphasis.
When I'm playing tunes on guitar (where my technique is also rudimentary) I'm constantly searching around for one of those cheap-and-easy double stops to add a little color or put a tag on the end of a phrase. But they are never there to grab! Well OK maybe if I'm playing the melody up the neck a good few frets.
By chance, I just last week encountered the guitar concept of "floaties" and have been trying to work in some of that to a fiddle tune I'm learning at the moment. Cool that you mentioned it and used the same term I'd heard it described by.
The first man who whistled
thought he had a wren in his mouth.
He went around all day
with his lips puckered,
afraid to swallow.
--"The First" by Wendell Berry
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