Why Guitarists Should Play Mandolin - ASK ZAC EP 25

well hello friends and welcome to
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another Ask Zac I hope you're doing
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well
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yeah today we're gonna talk about
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mandolins and how why I picked up the
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mandolin why I think other guitar
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players should think about learning how
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to play you know some basic mandolin and
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what it can offer to you first a little
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pause for the cause please subscribe if
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mandolin the reason I was interested in
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learning how to play the mandolin was
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from watching television and seeing two
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of my favorite guitar players one was
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John Jorgenson and then Albert Lee in
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the late 80s Early 90s you know of
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course they would play some Telecaster
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stuff and then they'd pull out the
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mandolin and do all sorts of interesting
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things and I just really you know it was
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interesting I was a you know gravitated
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you know toward the mandolin and just
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really liked it I liked it sound so I
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picked up a inexpensive you know plywood
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mandolin you know with a chipboard case
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for 100 bucks at the local classified
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ads and Corpus Christi and just started
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learning how to play it and it really
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threw me off you know at first you know
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of course of course the tuning you know
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it's in fifths instead of fourths
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but what kind of helped me in the
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beginning was thinking of the mandolin
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as a upside down and backwards guitar so
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if you think of like this is being the
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two low notes
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you know kind of open G chord so that's
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kind of how I started out and then of
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course it helps if you know some some
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theory and know you know what you know
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the notes of the fretboard and also you
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know what notes make up you know a G
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chord or a C chord or whatever and then
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start learning some major scales learn
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some arpeggios and then there's just
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some techniques that will really help
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endear you to to others when you're
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playing the mandolin first off I would
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say don't play rhythm like you would on
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acoustic guitar or like the acoustic
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guitar player might be playing so let's
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say you're playing something in G and
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you know maybe the acoustic guitar is
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going to doing something like this well
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you don't want to double that what you
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would want to do is do something that
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complements that so maybe you'd want to
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do like a chop kind of technique and to
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do the full bluegrass chop you really
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have to cover all the strings and you
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because in bluegrass the the mandolin is
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kind of functioning like the snare drum
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so so first off don't you know do that
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jangly you know kind of you know rhythm
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like you would on an acoustic guitar
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maybe another thing is you know you have
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this great tool of the fact that the
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mandolin is in a different sonic range
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so it kind of has its own sonic real
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estate and so even if you hear if you're
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playing in a full band most the time the
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other instruments are not in this
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frequency range so you're going to be
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heard pretty much no matter what unless
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you're
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with a crazy loud band and they have you
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turned off but you know yeah you can
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play all these things and they don't
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fight in the same you know you're not
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fighting in the guitar range unless the
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guitar Capo's way up you're not fighting
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the piano player because most of time
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piano players not playing up high anyway
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you know most everyone's kind of
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fighting for the mid-range you know the
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vocals you know some of the drums stuff
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even some you know the guitar
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everything's kind of fighting for mids
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and this kind of has a nice angelic high
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end so there's a number of things you
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can do to kind of stay in that area and
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really complement what's going on great
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way is just learning the melody of the
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song and being able to you know play the
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melody on the high strings another is of
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course a technique I just used which is
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tremolo picking which of course is you
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know kind of moving the pick across the
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strings and sustaining it that
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techniques very important and of course
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you can use it on a single course or a
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double course so it sounds really nice
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when you hit you know like a G chord
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like this and you you kind of cover all
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the string
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[Music]
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and there's so many little simple things
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that you can do that really complement
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what's going on and it's not hard so
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yeah if someone if an acoustic guitar
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player is playing a G chord and they're
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finger-picking or something you can just
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play a diamond or a whole note like you
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can just do something like that and it's
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a nice kind of compliment or you can do
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the you know the tremolo picking being
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play inversions or you could play a
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little line and you know as long as
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you're playing the notes that are in the
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chord that's being played which again
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comes back to kind of knowing the
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fretboard and knowing some basic theory
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you're gonna be in good shape and you
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just you know try not to play on top of
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the vocal another technique that is
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really nice on the mandolin is what's
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called cross picking and cross picking
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is basically finger picking but using
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only a pick because you can finger pick
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on the mandolin but it doesn't sound
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great so here I'll show you what trying
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to finger pick sounds like it's just
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it's it's clumsy so cross picking is
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[Music]
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so that technique is very useful
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the Jesse McReynolds part of the
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bluegrass duo Jim and Jesse originated
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that and where I first heard it was John
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Jorgenson using it on the Desert Rose
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band tune time between actually that's
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Chris Hillman wrote that for the birds
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and but they covered it and the Desert
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Rose band with Chris Hillman and he did
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some amazingly fast cross picking on
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there also just a side note on Jorgenson
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he he would use the mandolin through
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effects like he would use boss vibrato
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or rhythmic delay and I'm gonna create
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kind of a Spotify playlist with some of
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these tunes yeah Jorgenson would
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sometimes run his mandolin through his
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vox ac30 s and use pedal effects on them
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and stuff like that and very influential
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stuff but back to where we were yeah so
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cross picking is a great way of adding
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you know a nice element so it doesn't
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have to be really even know like a line
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like I was doing before it could just be
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like a like a G chord where
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[Music]
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so just you know really simple things
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can can really add a lot to to the other
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musicians and and again you have the
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advantage of being in this frequency
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range where you're not fighting
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everybody and you end up getting hurt
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better so there you have unity can have
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the rhythmic chomp you have the cross
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picking thing you have the tremolo
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picking my favorite mandolin players
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besides Jon Jorgensen would be Ry Cooder
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 and then Sam Bush I love all
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the bluegrass guys but I'm just not a
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bluegrass dude I'm just I love it I love
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listening to it but I you know that's a
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so much of a chops in such a physicality
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to playing bluegrass that you really
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have to be married to it and decide
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you're going to be a bluegrass guy and
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that's it and I'm not that guy so I want
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to use the mandolin and more of a folk
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country rock rock and roll or bluesy
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kind of way and you know Raikou der is
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an example of you know using the
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mandolin in more of kind of bluesy kind
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of rock-and-roll fashion and part of
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what he does is he does a lot of fifths
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which part of those you know because
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he's he's playing a lot of open tunings
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and stuff that end up having a lot of
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root and fifths and chords and so let's
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say you play a G chord like this
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that has the third in it right here well
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if I take that up and plate like this I
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have it where I'm only playing roots and
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fifths because I have root fifth and
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then fifth and root so you get this and
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that has a different sound than this you
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know lose losing the third gives it a
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power also an ambiguity to it also and
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by doing this shape you can kind of get
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more into that kind of ride cooter kind
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of thing that he would do maybe like
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this
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[Music]
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that has a fun you know element to it
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again just by deciding okay I'm not
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going to play thirds and I'm you know
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only going to play you know routes and
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fits and I'm going to stack those it
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creates a more powerful and less kind of
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country bluegrass sound you know and
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that's a great way of taking the
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mandolin again away from the folky kind
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of sound is by you know stacking and
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then of course you can play you can play
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thirds and then add like the flat the
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you know the dominant seven so those you
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know those are you know some things you
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can do of course you can play lines play
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solo but you know if you take a little
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time to kind of learn the mandolin and
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you know learn a little bit of you know
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the layout of the fretboard as far as
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where the notes are and just some basic
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techniques if you try not to do this and
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try to figure out how you can do chops
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or diamond or even a lick you know those
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things will add a lot to the music as
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far as like getting a mandolin of course
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my first main one was this you know
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inexpensive you know like I said it was
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all you know plywood was 100 bucks with
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a chipboard case my next mandolin was a
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50s Gibson a 50 which of course was a
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nice kind of
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student you know a style mandolin that
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Gibson made and I loved the sound of it
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but it hurt my hand a lot crazy to play
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for more than like 30 minutes or an hour
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and so I ended up getting rid of it
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because of that and what I learned was
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vintage mandolins have a have they have
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no radius the fingerboard is completely
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dead flat I mean it is flat as can be
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and then they have the tiniest frets I
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mean they're just all paper-thin and
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then especially the student models have
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tiny tiny tiny necks both the width of
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it and the depth and so they're very
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small and so this mandala not that I'm
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playing today is a Breedlove k5 that was
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made in the late 90s and this mandolin
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was one of the first that I was able to
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find that had wider that was wider at
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the nut it had more depth to the neck
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the fingerboard is radiused and then it
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has bigger frets and all those things
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add up to make it more guitar player
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friendly or more friendly to people with
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bigger hands or maybe it's just people
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that aren't as crazy dedicated as
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bluegrass errs so but anyway this is the
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mandolin and I've played for last you
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know 15 plus years and I love it
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I've added a an LR bags pickup it's kind
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of like their mandolin version of the L
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lb6 unfortunately they stopped making
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the pickup so I guess at this point I
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would recommend they have a stick-on
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pickup or I would check out the K&K mini
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that can be installed in a mammal and
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that's a that's a good pickup as far as
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mandolins there's tons of inexpensive
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mandolins that you can pick up and you
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know for like I said you know a couple
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hundred bucks or even a hundred bucks to
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see if it's something you want to do and
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then you can spend a little more money
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if you're really gonna be serious about
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it and your guitar player I recommend
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getting one that has a radius fretboard
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and bigger frets and now that's a fairly
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common thing it's not like it was you
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know 15 20 years ago where it was only
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like high-end instrument
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sir you know I think I bought this used
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for about 1800 bucks
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you know back in the in the mid-2000s so
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but yeah you know strings Oh first off
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you know of course you can use a capo
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with one of these things no one's gonna
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you know some of them might make fun of
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you but you know just tell them they're
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a dummy Capo's are fine for guitar or
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electric or mandolin or whatever then as
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far as strings I use these right now I'm
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using these do derionne nickel bronze
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that are 11 through 40 I like those
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strings I've used before that which I
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still use some are the elixir Nano web
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because they're just they have a long
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life to them and and they're they're
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kind of slick which is nice when you're
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kind of moving you know sliding around
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on the mandolin fretboard and then I
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just wanted to mention this box which a
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lot of you are probably familiar to it
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with it the LR bags pair acoustic di I
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love it has a great it really has a lot
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of EQ control over it which you might
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need that you know live and then also
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just has great sound and great feel to
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it with other di with other dies that
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I've used with the with mandolin tend to
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get a really hard sound and it's hard to
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play you know with a hard sound and this
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bags di just has a softness to it and
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it's a natural softness not like it's
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you know overly gushy sounding or
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something but I just I really love that
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box so those are kind of the tools I
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normally on guitar electric guitar or
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acoustic I use basically a Fender medium
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and use the you know the rounded edge
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but on mandolin I will use a more
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expensive thicker pick so right now I am
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using a blue chip pick because Keith
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Williams at 5 watt world sent me one to
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check out and this is their thinnest
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because again I don't like dick pics so
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this is their TPR 35 RB and it has 5
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watt world logo on one side
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so this is a cool pic and I really like
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it because of the bevel so this is about
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the thickness of like a fender heavy and
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it's the lightest that blue chip makes
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but I like it it it's really good for
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again 4/4 rhythm playing for lead has a
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nice fat sound yeah it's just it it
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feels good but again I don't like these
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kind of picks on electric guitar or even
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acoustic most the time but I do like
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these kind of fancy picks on mandolin so
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those are kind of some things to kind of
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get you started yeah you just got to
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watch out because once you start playing
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mandolin and start bringing it people
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are going to want you to bring it all
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the time
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and you're probably going to get a lot
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of compliments on it because people like
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mandolin and so you know it's funny when
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I started playing mandolin even though
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I'm a much better guitar player than I
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am a mandolinist I still get a lot more
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compliments on my mandolin playing and
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that's because it's more of a unique
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instrument and people can really hear it
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because it really sticks out and that's
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that's one of the great things about it
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people can really hear even you know non
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musicians they can really hear the
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mandolin and they love the sound of it
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so yeah another reason to pick it up of
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course you might get your feelings hurt
19:23
when people aren't saying anything about
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your blazing Telecaster lyrics but
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they're talking about your you know your
19:29
your little mandolin tremolo playing
19:31
where you played a simple melody but
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people like it I you know mandolins
19:38
helped me out a lot a lot of times I
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take an electric guitar in a mandolin on
19:44
a lot of all the gigs that I play and
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it's a lot of fun because you know being
19:49
able to have those two instruments to
19:50
switch between really gives you two very
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different flavors and you're really able
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to create very different moods with
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those two instruments and it really
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gives you a lot of versatility makes you
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more employable the only thing that
20:04
makes more employable than that is by
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being a great Baccarin Singh
20:07
but that's another episode and and not
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for me so guys thank you so much for
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watching I hope you've enjoyed this I
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hope you'll consider picking up the
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mandolin and learning how to play it and
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just having fun with it and we'll see
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you next time
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Thanks buh-bye