Mandolin Basics: How to Hold the Pick, Mandolin, and Brace Your Playing Hand

Okay, let's continue on with some basics before we actually start playing something. I'd like to show you how to:

• Hold the pick
• Hold the mandolin
• Brace your playing hand

Not your fretting hand, but your playing hand. In my case, I'm right-handed, so it's this hand, the hand I hold the pick with.

Holding the Mandolin

First of all, let's start with holding the mandolin. I rest the neck of the mandolin between these two joints of my index finger. You can kind of see I've got a big callus here in my left hand from doing that for so long. The neck kind of rests right in there. I hope you can see that.

Then, my thumb comes up a little bit over the side of the mandolin. It looks like this:

• Notice my thumb isn't all the way up over the neck.
• If I were doing that, the neck would be resting right here.

The reason I don't do that is that if my thumb is all the way up there and the neck is resting all the way in, it's hard for me to slide up and down and change positions on the neck.

Additionally, if I'm in that position, I find it hard to get my fingers around to achieve the proper angle onto the strings.

Holding the Pick

Now, let's discuss holding the pick. If you line up the pick with the tip, imagine a line from the tip to the top of the pick.

• My thumb comes across at about 90 degrees.
• If you'll notice, it goes back to the joint and then slightly over.

This will vary since everybody has different sized fingers, but that's where things line up for me. In the back:

• My index finger comes down roughly at a 90-degree angle to the thumb, with the index just slightly bent at that joint.

I use quite heavy picks, this one is 1.5 millimeters, and for me, that's a preferable sound. I find I get more of the warm end of the sound from the mandolin, which is a fairly trebly instrument to begin with. So, I get a little more of the bass response and maybe even some more of the mid response.

This is a teardrop-shaped pick. There are all sorts of different shapes, and I play with the pointed side of it. I've experimented with:

• Rounded shoulders
• Different shaped picks

If you play with a round edge, this sound is even warmer and a little bassier. However, I find that playing tremolo, that technique, is a little hard to dig in with the rounded side, so I prefer the pointed side of the pick.

It's really important for you to try different things. Try this basic grip and then experiment from there to see what works for you. You may change things at different points.

A Personal Tip

What I came around to a few years ago is changing from this basic grip to one where I actually bring this finger down. Nowadays, that's the way I'll hold the pick when I'm playing lead solos. I found that this gives a little more resistance and provides a better tone on the upstroke of the mandolin.

Bracing with the Right Hand

Now, let's focus on bracing with the right hand.

• Get a shot of the mandolin here. You can see where it's really worn right here, I've had this mandolin since 1978 and played it a lot.
• It's almost a little embarrassing how beat up it looks.

This wear is where my arm comes across. What I do is come across between the tailpiece and the F hole there. I lightly, very lightly brush from the middle of the bridge down to the bottom with this part of my wrist. This helps me stay oriented to the strings.

I don't plant this really hard. One important thing about your right hand when playing mandolin is to keep your wrist very loose.

Common Technique

Basically, there's no right and wrong, just standard techniques. There are some great players, mandolin and guitar players. If you watch them, they're often playing from the elbow, but I think that's the exception rather than the rule. The first thing you should learn is to try to play from the wrist.

• I'm positioned just behind the bridge on the strings, but again, I'm not pushing down hard.

A Cautionary Tale

A story I like to tell about keeping your wrist loose involves a mandolinist by the name of Frank Wakefield, one of the greatest players ever. When I was in my early 20s, I had a chance to play in a jam session with him. He was playing at phenomenally fast speeds and trying to get all of us laid-back West Coast players to play faster.

I was trying to keep up with him all day at a jam in someone's kitchen. The faster he played, the looser he was, but the faster I tried to play, the tighter my wrist became.

Actually, I injured my wrist trying to keep up with Frank Wakefield that day. I had to soak my wrist and couldn't play for quite some time. So, remember: it's crucial to keep that wrist very, very loose.