OCTAVE MANDOLIN HOW TO

If you are new to the octave mando, the first thing you'll find is that it is nearly impossible to use traditional mandolin fingerings without stretching your hand into oblivion.

The band has been very supportive of my playing this axe, and Matt Glaser's credo of 'All styles of music, all the time' has led me to play everything from straight bluegrass to bebop to who-knows-what-to-call-it. My particular instrument, made by Stefan Sobell in the year 2000, has a nice combination of sustaining, round tone with a Selmer (the guitar favored by Django Reinhardt) type 'honk'. The octave mandolin really finds it's own sonic space in the band, rather than guitar (which tends to get lost among the banjo, piano and drums) or mandolin (whose range is duplicated by the violin).

OCTAVE MANDOLIN HOW TO

Actually, I am playing octave mando exclusively in the group at this time, as the lineup of piano, bass, drums, banjo and fiddle plus 3 vocalists presents a challenge of how to fit in with so much going on. Here is an example of the octave mandolin played in an unusual setting: The Wayfaring Strangers.

This Train MP3 audio file (458K download) There are 20 tunes included in the book, fully transcribed in tablature and standard notation, from Irish to blues and jazz, even a Venezualan waltz. In my Guide to Octave Mandolin and Bouzouki book/CD set I go into specific details about my approach to playing octave mandolin- fingerings, chord voicings, approaches to Irish style accompaniment, etc. More information about John is available from our feature interview with him from July, 2011. John performs locally and internationally from his base in Boston, Massachusetts. He is also the transcriber of choice for publications such as Mel Bay, Hal Leonard, Acoustic Disc, Flatpicking Guitar Magazine, and many other noteworthy publications. He has recorded on Green Linnet, Narada, Rounder, and Flying Fish to name a few. John McGann (deceased) was Associate Professor of Strings at Berklee College of Music, the 1985 National Mandolin Champion and author or Mel Bay: A Guide to Octave Mandolin & Bouzouki.

Octave mandolin