Obviously, as with guitars, there are hundreds of mandolins available to suit all sorts of tones, styles, looks and budgets. It takes a while to get used to having no strap, but it isn’t unheard of to just create your own strap for the instrument. You don’t want it pointing at the sky, but you also don’t want it to be jutting out sideways like a guitar. What you should aim to do, is tuck the bottom of the body into your strumming arm, then angle the neck of the mandolin about 90 degrees more upright than you would a guitar. For a while, I simply sat down as though I was playing classical guitar. As they’re so small and light, this sort of makes sense, but when you’re a guitarist trying to branch out (like me) this often causes issues when you expect a strap to be holding your instrument up. Holding A Mandolin: Many mandolins have no strap. Those miniscule frets that sit smugly all the way at the end of the instrument aren’t going to be played by anything other than a perfectly placed fingernail. Finally, you’ll have to get used to the idea that some frets on the mandolin just weren’t made to be reached. Also, the main body of the mandolin is much smaller, so you’ve got a lot less surface area to rest your strumming/picking hand, while the tuning pegs are also smaller, but more compact. The thin neck is also a lot easier to break than a guitar neck. Make sure you’re aware of this, as it’ll mean your fretting hand has to get used to an entirely new positioning.
I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried to wrap your entire hand around a guitar neck, but it’s quite hard to do- on a mandolin it’s really quite easy. As mentioned above, the thinner strings don’t cause much of a problem as they’re doubled up anyway, but the neck is considerably smaller. The Size: While a bass is much bigger than an electric guitar, a mandolin is much smaller in basically every way. Don’t worry about getting your pick (or finger) caught between the two, because it’s actually harder to do that than avoid it.
As mandolin strings are thinner anyway, doubling them takes them to a thickness not too much greater than a guitar, plus they’re so close together that they basically feel like one string when playing anyway.
Honestly, you don’t notice as much as you’d think. However, it is the idea of double strings that often causes the most fear when moving towards the mandolins. This brings a few challenges, mostly in getting used to the idea of making chords that only cover 4 strings, rather than 6. For now, you can imagine we are dealing with a 4-stringed instrument not unlike the bass guitar. While it has 4 sets of strings, and therefore 4 playable, open strings. Strings: While a standard guitar has 6 strings, you’ll notice a mandolin has 4…. Of course, at the same time, they’re still a stringed instrument with frets and no bow- this means you’ll be able to take your grasp of electric guitar over to the mandolin. They very rarely front a rock band like an electric guitar often will, but in country, bluegrass and folk music, a mandolin is a key player. A mandolin is much smaller, (often) rounder, and you’ll typically see them a lot less frequently. The first thing you’ll probably notice is that they look pretty different.
What Are The Big Differences Between A Guitar And A Mandolin?