Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Discuss the Mandolin lesson: A & E Open Mandolin Chords

#1

https://banjobenclark.com/lessons/a-e-open-mandolin-chords-mandolin-beginner

After learning G, C, & D, let’s now learn the open A & E chords on the mandolin! We’ll talk about different keys we can now play in and work exercises to get better!

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#2

Another great lesson on basics, Ben! Thanks for all you do… musically and otherwise. You are an inspiration. Looking forward to Montana!!

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#3

Hello Ben, great string master, This is Samuel, your student in Brazil. Ben, I’m not receiving email notifications about your new classes, could you help me? I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

#4

Looks like you had unsubscribed somehow, but I have resubbed you.

#5

So helpful and perfect pace….
Thanks!

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#6

Hey, Mr. Ben Clark! I recently started playing mandolin, and I was wondering what strings you would recommend? Also, your website has helped me so much for my guitar and mandolin playing! Thank you so much :blush:

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#7

Thanks so much! I like the EJ74 strings for general purpose: https://store.banjobenclark.com/products/daddario-ej74-phosphor-bronze-medium-gauge-mandolin-strings

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#8

Ok, those sound great! I’ll definitely look them up. Thanks again! :blush:

#9

I’m struggling with fretting the A & E chords in this lesson. In order to get each pair of strings I have to flatten my pointer finger at the last joint and press hard enough that it hurts more than I think it should. Looking at the video I don’t see the pointer finger collapse. I can only get the inner two strings (lower G string and upper D string) but fortunately mute the other. This feels much better. Is it the right approach? It helps my hand and fingers look more like the video when fretting

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#10

Hey William, welcome to the forum!

One thing that may be happening is that you’re angling your finger too parallel to the fret, forcing it to have to bend unnaturally to get the barre. If you angle your finger so that it’s not so parallel and actually pointing more right and up, it makes the barres easier.

If you can take a video of your fretting hand and post it in the Video Swap section, that’ll help us pinpoint more exactly what’s going on.

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#11

Thanks for the quick check in Michael! I’ll try to get set up to record my hands and post a video. In the meantime time, while it can be hard to keep track of things, I’ve tried pretty hard to keep my fingers pointed towards my shoulder and don’t think that is the issue. Here is a video I found on YouTube that perfectly describes what I am having to do to get the chord to strum https://youtu.be/Rh1hAFJnGfc?si=0Ggt4vYrgBgBeu9k (note that his fingers are angled but he claims he can’t hit all four strings perfectly). Watching @BanjoBen in the video I noticed his index finger seemed to hit in between the pairs of strings which started to work when strumming, but I noticed the top string in the upper pair and bottom string in the lower pair were muted rather than fretted fully.

Thanks again! And I’ll try to post a video in the swap in the next few days.