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Mandolin

By Steve
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Steve

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I love the sound of the mandolin. So I bought one! :) Being worried that I might not be able to get my great pudgy hands round the small neck (Although it worked with my second wife!) I decided to go for a really cheap option and only paid 20 quid (That's GB quids) from ebay. I'm glad I did that! Because my fears were well founded! I can't play it. The neck is too small and the frets are to close together. :( So, What I want to know is, are there some alternative instruments I should be looking at similar to the Mandolin? What do you recomend? Links please!

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john

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Hey Steve

You could get a mandola or octave mandolin...

http://www.mandolincafe.com/archives/howtotell.html#MANDOLA

:)

Cheers

John

PS if you bring your mandolin to the meet I'll take it off your hands. My mandolin is broken :(

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Nick

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I love the sound of the mandolin. So I bought one! :) Being worried that I might not be able to get my great pudgy hands round the small neck

Persevere, Steve. If you have just got it I think you need to give it more of a chance.

I bought a mandolin last year and when I started playing it was convinced that there was no way you could get your fingers to fit as it was so different to the guitar and (even more so) the bass that I am used to. After a little while though you start to get used to it and realise it is just different rather than impossible. As I think I have said before I still find it bizarre switching from bass to mandolin because the difference is extreme but you can get used to it.

The frets do get mighty close as you go up but I am getting used to playing up the neck and it's amazing what you get used to. I recently found out that Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You" works really well on a standardly tuned mandolin and has some natty little chords in it (like 7-9-0-10 and 6-7-0-9 and 6-5-7-0 etc) where the finger spacings are really small - but you strangely get used to it.

The other thing I found is that I can get up a reasonable speed on a mandolin playing single string runs whereas on a guitar I am much less fluent - very odd.

Keep going and see how you feel in a week once your hand has got used to it a bit

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Smitty

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Ha Steve, this is strange. I also just got one myslef. I have the opposite problem of you though! I have really small hands so it's easy (at least I think) for me to maneuver around the neck and things of the such. I really fell in love with the instrument. Ive had it for less than a month and I've learned a bunch of chords on it already. I'm also going to play it in my school's variety show this Friday lol. SO im eager with this thing. Even though I have a feeling I'm not quite ready to play it in the Variety show. Oh well! It's worth a try! SOrry to hear about your problem though. I have heard though of octave mandos and things of that sort. I'm not sure if they're much different in size or not, though. :S

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Nick

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I was looking at a bazouki (sp?) the other day! Might have another foray into that if I can find some time! Good luck with your playing smitty! :)

Don't put your hand over the end when you fire it or you might damage your fingers. Still, you might be able to play the mandolin then

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  • 2 weeks later...
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tgrover

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:) Hey Tim. Wassup? Thanks for the CD.

not much. recording/recording/recording

turns out my girlfriend of over 3 years has an absoulety amazing voice and we have been asked to submit an album to a few labels down in london. When they heard her voice and the album i sent you they wanted to combine the two so been writing /recording daily now to get it finished.

nothing like a bit of pressure!

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thelevellers

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I've heard that one from Steve before - Don't believe it for a minute!

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  • 2 months later...
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Mazrocon

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I can't really imagine having too big of hands to play the mandolin. I mean if a blind guy can play a guitar and if beethoven can play the piano when he's deaf i'm sure you can persevere through having slightly too big of hands :) However if it is too impossible or just not good enough i'm sure you can get a mandolin with a wider neck. I'd keep trying if I were you.

~TIMOTHY~

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Steve

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Is there anything you're not!??! You say you're a painter, musician and now you're saying you're a doctor!?!

~TIMOTHY~

I am a man of many talents. and girlfriends.

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neoism

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I am a man of many talents. and girlfriends.

can you give me some tips...??

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