Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I've been playing Guitar sometimes Bass & bit of Keyboards for years & was wondering about Mandolins & similar instruments.

Bluegrass & Celtic Mandolins sound good, how are they tuned, four pairs of strings like a 12 string guitar, what notes?

Sorry for asking but I don't know any local players so any help would be welcome about any similar instruments that a guitarist could learn?

Mandolin is tuned in fifths. G-D-A-E low to high. The pairs of strings are tuned in unison. Like guitar, not hard to learn, just difficult to master. You can test the waters pretty cheaply these days. Just go out & pick up a mandolin chord book & you're on your way.
Also check out the best mandolin resource on the Web, Mandolin Cafe: http://www.mandolincafe.com/

Good Luck,
Bill

Interesting. I played around with a bouzuki the other day while Aitch was visiting me, kinda like a long scale mandolin.

Our local music store owner (& guitar player) found the standard tuning awkward (to his guitar playing mind) & tuned his lefty style (E A D G) so as to play the chords guitar fashion.
I've often wanted to take a swipe at playing some other instruments, mandolin & bouzouki (and it's cousins) particularly.

Mandolins and bouzoukis are usually tuned the same: GG DD AA ee

I keep mine in Irish tuning: GG DD AA dd

Very informative!

Cheers Lads!

I started playing mandolin a few years ago. I liked the tuning so much, I finally tuned a bass in 5ths!

"I started playing mandolin a few years ago. I liked the tuning so much, I finally tuned a bass in 5ths!"

Cello!

I'm terrible on a mandolin as soon as I stray from just playing chords. Every time I switch strings, I'm two frets off from where I expected to be and my brain just doesn't seem to ever make the conversion. My brother is a Mandolin player and has a stack of electrics, both four and eight string and you can get some pretty cool sounds out of an electric one. He has one Jetglo Ric (gorgeous, of course), a couple Godins (very nice), a couple Epiphone Mandobirds (very cool for about $200, but expect to have the nut replaced and pro set-up before it plays decently), the Telecaster bodied kit I built for him (not bad for the money), a solid body custom-built one from John Mann and he has a neck-through hollow-bodied one that John Mann just finished on the way that's really pretty (don't tell his wife - at least they're small and easy to hide...). The boy can make some seriously high-pitched sounds with that armada! Next time he comes up to visit we're going to try them through the JangleBox, which should be interesting.

Mann Hollow body:

I need a lot more work before my mandolin playing is going to be useable. The biggest challenge is cramming all those fingers into no space at all. The octave mando is a lot easier to deal with from that perspective.

Well if you really want to play an "other stringed instrument" - why not come over to the other side and try the king of stringed instruments - the violin!

But beware!

I played violin when I was in high school, so I thought it would be easy to learn to play mandolin....and it is, if I'm just playing notes, LOL! I get totally lost trying to play chords, though. But I suppose if I ever do learn mando chords, I'll also be able to fiddle country-style!

Amazing but true. I can play my violin...just like Jack Benny used to.

Anyone have experience playing a bajo sexto or bajo quinto?

I'm working up my mandolin/bouzouki skills afer years of getting by (I'm a bass player most of the time). ADAD is quite a good alternate tuning for Bouzouki.