MandoSimian

Black Dots and Flight Patterns for Mandolin Players

Exploring the Farther Reaches of the Mandolin’s Potential

A website created to share information for the discovery of the vast resources that the mandolin is able to glean from all styles of music, to aid mandolinists in finding their own potential and to contribute to the community of musicians and listeners alike.

  • Mandolin: A Prospector’s Dream

    In a local cafe at mid-afternoon, unsuspecting ears suddenly perk up and heads turn towards a mandolin's chime. The sound commands attention.  Perhaps this is due to its clarity or maybe because of the novelty of its sound, but whatever the root cause, the initial call of the mandolin unmistakeably piques the ear's curiosity. Continuing with a … read more

    Mandolin: A Prospector’s Dream

  • About Chords for the Mandolin

    Mandolin has a pitch range that starts from G below middle C and  spans 3 octaves or more. It's short string length means a person's hands can spread over more frets than larger instruments. Moving up the neck, the player will notice a greater ease of reach counteracted by cramped spaces, crowding fingers into miniature shapes to play chords that … read more

    About Chords for the Mandolin

  • Fitting Into the Big Picture

    The mandolin, as well as  members of the mandolin family and many instruments that use the same tuning, offers a wide range of musical options. When compared to other instruments, the mandolin tends to focus its output more tightly or, perhaps better said, less broadly than some familiar and popular instruments such as piano or guitar. Is this a … read more

    Fitting Into the Big Picture

  • Scales, Modes & Tonality

    Modes have been around even longer than the mandolin. The illustration here is from the 1500's, from a manuscript of Spanish vihuela music.  You can read for yourself, if you understand early Spanish and if you understand early Spanish music theory, that this music is for Vihuela in A (fa) using the second tone, or Dorian mode (I think!). So as … read more

    Scales, Modes & Tonality

  • Gravity and Levity in Music

    Readers please note that the purpose of this piece is to offer food for thought more than to define an element or draw a conclusion and your comments are welcome. This is a discourse in music theory although scientifically very soft. The point is simply to better understand the complex nature of what we hear in music. What is Gravity and … read more

    Gravity and Levity in Music

  • Jazz Chord Theory

    This area of this fledgling website is, itself, a work in progress at this time. There is a lot of information online about jazz chords and music theory. What is planned for this site is to offer a beginning reference to accompany other articles on the site to help with a better understanding of that content. This will never be an authoritative … read more

    Jazz Chord Theory

  • Where This May Lead

    The internet offers us such a wonderful tool for communications, offering many media sources to experience and to learn from. We are lucky today to have such convenient access to so much information available at our wish and not the wish of someone else. Our wish is to share with you and hope you will share back. We hope you enjoy reading and … read more

    Where This May Lead

More Reading

Explore more, feet-to-the-floor, find your path, do the math.....Here is a list of further … Read More

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