Category: Mandolin

Easy Bluegrass & Folk Songs on Mandolin

By Wayne Erbsen

In my article entitled Mandolin Chords, I showed you a number of basic mandolin chords. Armed with that knowledge, there are thousands of songs you can play simply by strumming the chord and singing, humming or whistling the song.

Before you can do that you will need to figure out which chords to play when.

The good news is that most bluegrass, folk and country songs can be played with just three chords. These three chords form a little family called a “key.” We often give the chords in this family the numbers 1, 4, and

… Read the rest
Posted on by

How to Tune a Mandolin

By Wayne Erbsen

Mandolins are fun to play, but they’re a pain in the you-know-what to tune.

Why?

Because the double strings are like quarreling siblings who never seem to agree with each other.

Nonetheless, in this article, I will show you how to easily get your mandolin more or less in tune.

As you already know, your mandolin has four pairs of strings. Each pair is tuned to the same note.

Hold the mandolin on your lap in playing position. The 1st string is the one closest to the floor and is an E. Here are the names of

… Read the rest
Posted on by — 7 Comments

How to Jam on the Mandolin

By Wayne Erbsen

By now you’ve learned to play a few tunes on the mandolin. You know some of your basic chords, and you’d love to be able to play with other musicians in a jam, but you’re “chicken.” That’s because up to now, you’ve just been playing by yourself in the closet, so to speak.

Well, it may be time to walk proudly out of the closet and into the limelight. Or, on the other hand, you may need to go deeper into your closet, pulling a coat down over your head (just kidding).

Let’s take this little

… Read the rest
Posted on by — 2 Comments

Easy Two-Finger Mandolin Chords

By Wayne Erbsen

Compared to the guitar, mandolin chords are EASY. In fact, most mandolin chords only use two fingers or sometimes only one.

In the mandolin chord charts below, each horizontal line represents a pair of mandolin strings. The E string is the one closest to the floor, as you hold your mandolin in playing position, and the G string is closest to the ceiling. The numbers represent the fret. Be sure to place your fingers between, not on, the fret. The letter to the left of each chord chart tells you the name of that chord. The letters

… Read the rest
Posted on by — 8 Comments

Easy Mandolin Songs

By Wayne Erbsen

In my article Mandolin Chords, I showed you a number of two-finger chords you can play on the mandolin. Armed with that knowledge, there are thousands of songs you can play simply by strumming the chord and singing, humming, or whistling the song.

Before you can do that you will need to figure out which chords to play when.

The good news is that most bluegrass songs can be played with just three chords. These three chords form a little family called a “key.” We often give the chords in this family the numbers 1 4

… Read the rest
Posted on by — 3 Comments

How to Play Mandolin

By Wayne Erbsen

NOTE: I wrote this article in back in 1980 for the Mother Earth News.

Some people call it a ‘tator bug because of its traditional round back, but most people know it as a mandolin. The instrument, a distant relative of the lute and (even more distantly) the guitar, was brought to America from eastern Europe during the last century. It wasn’t exactly an overnight success, though — probably because the import’s bowl-like back made it frustratingly hard to hang onto to play.

But in the late 1800’s, an instrument maker in Kalamazoo, Michigan, named Orville Gibson

… Read the rest
Posted on by — 11 Comments