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Mattias

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Mattias

Very nice, very nice. I like that black face. And i know it sounds good

Love that white purfling line beside the tortoise binding! Got a close up picture of that?

Eric and others,

Here's a close up on the white purfling.

Mattias

Lovely looking Mandolin! I can't play Mandolin but I enjoy looking at them. Is it a hard instrument for a guitarist to learn?

I particulary love that black top when matching with a Sunburst side and back..

I wonder if they build guitars with this option as well.. It just look GREAT! Imagine a C10 with sunburst maple back and side and a black top, tortoise bindings!

Ed,

I wouldn't know if it is hard for a guitarist to learn to play the mandolin since I don't play the guitar! I started out as a classical violin and viola player, but a few years ago I found "my" instrument(s), the mandolin family! And with this Collings mandolin I'm in plectral heaven!

BTW, Ed thank you for administring this site! It's great!

Mattias

quote:

Lovely looking Mandolin! I can't play Mandolin but I enjoy looking at them. Is it a hard instrument for a guitarist to learn?

Mandolin is a great second instrument for guitarists to learn. Picking and fretting are similar, you mostly have to get used to a new tuning scheme and holding the neck is more similar to fiddle. In my opinion, 5ths tuning on mandolin is way more intuitive than the 4ths plus one third tuning of the guitar.

The issue that I often hear from my mandolin students who've come to it from playing guitar is the scale length, people wonder how they're gonna fit their fingers into those tiny little frets. Of course, a Collings mando is set up so nicely that it's not a problem.

Seth

I'll heartily 2nd all that Seth said. After you get used to it the 5th tuning is very intuitive. They tiny neck and frets can be a bit of a challenge but i've got short, fat fingers and i can play all the way up the neck... so it can be done! Training the pinky is also very important if you ever move out of first position as you'll find 4 note per string scales very common up the neck.

quote:

Originally posted by Seth Austen:
Picking and fretting are similar

If you use a flatpick on guitar!
I am a mandolin novice, but since the frets are closer together, some players use a different fingering...not one finger per fret. The index finger goes with the first two frets. The middle finger goes with frets 3 & 4. The ring finger goes with the 5th fret. The pinky is reserved for higher frets. While this isn't natural for the guitar player, it allows a little more freedom of movement on the cramped fretboard. Do you guys play like this?

Yes, the fingering on mandolin is more similar to the violin than guitar, one finger covers two notes; index on 1st and 2nd frets, middle on 3rd and 4th, ring for 5th and 6th, and pinky for 7th. It generally works out to one finger per note in a diatonic scale, which is very intuitive.

Seth

quote:

Lovely looking Mandolin! I can't play Mandolin but I enjoy looking at them. Is it a hard instrument for a guitarist to learn?

I started learning the mandolin about a month ago, and I'm finding it's a very smooth transition from guitar. The tuning is very intiutive to learn, and I've found that if I know a tune on guitar it's generally not too difficult to import it over to mandolin. I definitely recommend it.