Mandolas/Medicine/Dr. B’s music lesson

        Now I know you must wonder.  What the heck do mandolas and medicine have in common?  Well, it is more than you might think.  And after you read this post, you’ll forever remember more about mandolas than you wanted to know.  But just remember.  Like medicine, half of what I’m gonna teach you is wrong.  I just don’t know which half.

        To keep straight the difference in the two, all you have to do while you play is think of a mandolin with a thyroid condition, in particular a hypothyroid mandolin.

       You see, a mandola is shaped just like a mandolin except it is larger, a bit heavier, and has a bigger waist.   Also, it’s voice is lower.  And my hand tires faster on the mandola, so the fatigue factor is there too.  I don’t know if mandolas are more intolerant of cold than mandolins, but I do not recommend you leave either out in the car any longer than you would a baby, which is zero time.  Hypothyroidism offers no protection against extremes of temperature.  Instruments, fine as they are, can be replaced.  Babies- well, take no chances with them. 

        To be exact, a mandola is but a mandolin tuned one fifth lower.  For those of you who had kids in school orchestra, it is the exact same relationship of a violin and a viola. 

        Now before you get confused about fifths, in bluegrass music a fifth can also refer to a quantity of corn liquor, but in the case of mandolas it does indeed refer to music theory.  And by the way, I do not recommend children who play violins and want to try the viola be told about corn liquor- bad doctoring there.

        Here’s how it works when you play.  Make you a ‘G” chord on your mandolin.  Now close your eyes.  Get your assistant to hand you a mandola.  Now make the ‘G’ chord again, but when you open your eyes and see you have a big ole hypothyroid mandolin in hands, and if you memorized lesson one, just think one fifth (not booze) lower, and voila, you know you have made a ‘C.’  (Chord, not grade)

        Then, as you pick along, all you have to do is pretend your are working out of ‘G’ when they call for a ‘C’ tune.  Same thing for “D”- think ‘All I gotta do is make ‘A’ noise.  Now, to be sure you are with me, I am talking an ‘A’ note, not to be confused with ‘A’ style mandolin.  Or, if they want a ‘G’ tune play outta ‘D’ position on your mandola, etc.  However, this only works if you are a mandolin player at heart.  If mandola was your first instrument reverse all that.  And if the tune clips along pretty quick, you have to think fast. 

        To go back to the mandolin construction styles, (space limitations prohibit adequate room for discussion of playing style in this post- maybe later) there are two basic ones, the ‘A’ and the ‘F.’  (there are more but I don’t want to confuse everyone on the first lesson.) 

        The ‘F’ mandolin is so named for the little curly cue scroll and it has apertures called F holes.  The ‘A’ style mandolins are named for for the round body shape and not for ‘A’ holes.  Bluegrass is fine people and we don’t have any of those.  Well, once there was a band that was mean to folks, and everyone took to calling them ‘The Bluegrass Holes.”  They broke up.

        Now that I’ve posted my first (? last) on-line lesson, I will tell you I once told my teacher I might take up giving lessons myself, and he recommended against it.  I’m not sure why.

         If you want to hear a good example of mandola work, listen to Wayne Benson of Russell Moore and III Tyme Out.  His version of ‘John and Mary’ is the best one I’ve heard.

        The reason all this works for me is I never got around to reading music.  Most of the guys I pick with don’t.  One year the Philharmonic came to town and a real nice lady asked Raymond the fiddle man if he read music and he said, “Not enough to hurt my picking, but I do read ‘Rasslin Weekly.”

        Now the disclaimer.  The demographics on bluegrass indicate a very high educational level.  But it also is true that we don’t just march to a different drummer, we didn’t even know there was one.  So, if we seem a tad different we are, but we’re harmless.

       Hope you enjoyed the lesson.  See ya,

Dr. B

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