The Powell Music Studio offers
music lessons on the MANDOLIN
by award winning Barrie music teacher Sherrie Powell.
THE MANDOLIN
A mandolin is a small, plucked, stringed musical instrument, descended from the mandora. It is characterized by:
eight strings in four pairs, normally tuned to the tones g, d', a', and e" (like the violin), that are plucked with a pick,
a body with a teardrop-shaped face, or one that is essentially oval in shape,
a neck with a flat fretted fingerboard, and a flat nut and bridge,
tuning pegs inserted through the back of the neck's head, or machined metal gears and pins in lieu of the pegs,
a soundtable with a soundhole, or f-shaped soundholes, that are open and not latticed. [1] [2]
Some guitarists tune a mandolin in fourths, the same as the bottom four guitar strings (E-A-D-G) or the top four guitar strings (D-G-B-E) allowing the same fingerings as a guitar.
Like the guitar, the mandolin has relatively poor sustain; that is, the volume of a plucked string decays quickly. A note cannot be maintained for an arbitrary length of time as with a bowed note on a violin. Its small size and higher pitch makes this problem more severe than with the guitar, and the use of tremolo (rapid picking of one or more pairs of strings) is often used to create a sustained note or chords. This technique works particularly well with a mandolin's paired strings, where one of the pair is sounding while the other is being struck by the pick, giving a more rounded sound than a single coursed instrument can.
