Chords for Mandolin Lesson for Beginners

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_ _ Hi, [G] I'm Pete Frostick.
Welcome to VirtualWoodshed.com. I play with Old School Freight Train, and
today we're going to be talking a little bit [N] about the basics of the mandolin.
You know,
just the first things you ought to be doing to cultivate good habits as a mandolin player.
Now, the first thing that's really important is thinking about how you're going to hold
the mandolin.
With an F-style like this, the F-style is the one with the scroll and the
little horn at the bottom here, it's easy because you can just get your left leg a little
bit higher than your right and get this horn right down here.
The idea is that you're
going to hold the mandolin and you can stabilize it without your left hand so that you're free
to play with your left hand.
So, some combination of your stomach and your right forearm.
Your
forearm should hit right around back here, and leg, stomach, forearm, have a stable mandolin.
Okay, if you have an A-style mandolin, which is one of the teardrop, then this is a little
bit more difficult.
You might want to think about getting a strap that can go, you can
tie it under here with a shoelace, or if you've got one of the A-style, you can get a pin
put right here, just so you can stabilize the mandolin.
Okay, next topic is right hand.
So the right hand is really important in getting your technique together and off on a good
start.
First of all, how to hold the pick.
I hold the pick very loosely in my right hand.
The idea is that you take your fingers like this, and you kind of curl under your first
finger and then lay the pick right on top like that.
So the pointed edge is facing out
that way, and then you just kind of close your thumb over.
You know, this can be a strange
concept for a lot of people who have played guitar before, especially people who like
to hold the pick like this, or maybe with their middle finger, some combination of this.
Trust me, this is really important at the beginning to make sure that you're holding
the pick like this, curled under, kind of in that fashion. _
Just a quick note about what
kind of pick you should use.
This is a Dunlop 1.14. Anything thicker than 1mm is fine.
Just
make sure it's not too thin, because with the mandolin, you've got a lot of string tension
to push through.
Okay, next with the right hand is just, the idea is you want to be really
loose.
Okay, you want to make sure that you're on the verge of dropping that pick at any
moment.
You know, if you are pushing too hard, you can lose some color in your knuckle, and
under your nail there, that's way too hard.
And you can hear [D] the difference.
That's a
really _ hard grip, and this is a really loose grip.
_ So, obviously, one is [G] better than the
other.
Okay, so with the right hand, you want to have kind of a loose fist.
Curl your fingers
in just a little bit.
Again, not too much tension.
And you don't want to press anywhere
here on the bridge or here.
Some people will plant or plant like this.
The idea is just
to stay loose.
Okay, so let's start going down and up on a G string.
_ _ Generally, the
sweet spot of the mandolin is going to be somewhere here near the end of the neck.
If
you go too close to the bridge, _ it's a little tinny.
So, somewhere out here.
Now, remember
with the mandolin, you always play two strings.
You never just play one.
So, take a quick
look down at your right hand and make sure that you're getting both of those strings. _
_ Another thing about this is it's seemingly easy, but you just want to make sure that
they're about the same volume, left and right.
Or, I'm sorry, down and up. _
Okay, so let's
try now going down on the G string, up on the D string. _
_ _ _ _ All the movement here, or not
all, but most of the movement is coming from_ _ _ _ _ _
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