Chord Patterns on the Mandolin

The mandolin is a musical instrument used to create the melodies and riffs for a song.

Sometimes musicians play full chords, or arpeggios on a mandolin, as well as they move along the notes of a scale.

The DG Mandolin Chord Patterns Android application facilitates the learning of chord patterns on the Mandolin, by displaying all the notes and intervals in a chord, on any position along the fretboard.

To produce notes of a chord, you must play only notes from the chord.

NOTE: Bear in mind that the mandolin has four string courses, which means that you can only do triad and quad chords. For extended pentad chords such as 9ths, 9/6, you need to drop one of the notes in the chord (usually the 5th).

For example, say you want to produce notes for the Am7 chord.

The Am7 chord is based on the following notes: A, C, E, G.

Suppose you want to play this chord starting from the 5th fret of the Mandolin, and onwards.

• 1st string is E, part of the chord, but also A on the 5th fret, and C on the 8th fret;
• 2nd string is A, on the chord, but also E on the 7th fret;
• 3rd string is D (not on the chord), but G on the 5th, and A on the 7th are in the chord;
• 4th string is G, part of the chord, but also C on the 5th fret, and E on the 9th fret.

The following image shows this chord pattern on the 5th fret:

Next, you need to know the intervals, to be able to tell which is the root, and its relationship to the other notes in the chord.

By tapping on the fretboard of the DG Mandolin Chord Patterns Android application, it reveals the note intervals, as shown below:

This way you know the root (R) appears in 3 places, the third (m3) appears in 2 places, the fifth (p5) in 3 places, and the seventh (m7) in 2 places.

So there are several alternative ways you can build this chord from the 5th fret onwards.

Next, you have to decide how to combine the dots such that you form a chord with the R, m3, p5, and m7 intervals.

Here are some possibilities:

Which one you choose, depends on the proximity to the melody you are playing, on the sound, on your proximity to the previous and the next chords, and on how comfortable your fingers feel on those positions.

As you have seen, by understanding the intervals behind the chord formulas, this application will help you build many chords on your Mandolin.

A key point to remember: it does not teach you how to do chords by memory, it teaches you how to deduce them.