nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) (07/16/85)
["Let's go get sushi and not pay."] Does anyone know what the major differences between a guitar and a mandolin are? Are they tuned differently? Nash The Slash makes a big deal about not playing a guitar -- he plays an electric mandolin (also electric violin). It sounds a lot like an electric guitar though. (He does manage to make it sound heavier than just about any electric guitar I've ever heard.) Responses to me, please. "Swing shift (soixante-neuf) Tie her to a tree with a skipping rope" Doug Alan nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA)
ebc417@uiucuxa.Uiuc.ARPA (07/21/85)
First, size. Mandolins are much smaller, and are tuned an octave higher than a guitar. Tuning: quite different. The strings of a mandolin are usually tuned GDAE (7-fret intervals), to the same notes a violin are tuned to (violins and mandolins are very similar instruments, if you ignore such minor details as double strings, pick vs. bow, frets, etc.; jigs, reels, any sort of fast, active music can be played just about interchangably on either instrument). The greater intervals between strings and the smaller number of strings ( 4 unison pairs ) make the mandolin considerably less suitable for accompaniment or chordal complexity than the guitar; but this is counteracte by the shorter distance one's fingers need travel from note to note, so that melodic passages may be played rapidly much more easily on a mandolin. The notes tend to die out much more rapidly; those short strings cannot store as much energy to radiate as those on a guitar can. To sum up, the two are decidedly different instruments; which one to use depends upon what the circumstances are. I, by my lonesome, would much prefer to accompany myself with a guitar. Voice can handle melody, but the guitar gives chords. With several instruments around, the drawbacks of the mandolin as accompaniment can be avoided, and the ..drive.. of a nice mandolin solo is available as needed.