DG Mandolin Chords - How-to

The DG Mandolin Chords Android application is very easy to use.

The screen is divided into 4 regions, as shown in the following figure:

There are four regions: 3 button grids, and one central graphics frame:

• The blue button grid contains the 12 keys, or roots, on which you want to create a chord;
• these are labelled C, C#, D, etc. Notice that B is placed next to E, for space considerations.
• The red button grid contains 3x6=18 chords that apply to any chosen key;
• the list includes the main chords used in modern classical, folk, and jazz music styles.
• The green button grid (new from v1.1) allows choosing one of three chord fingering variations, along the fretboard.

When you are operating the application, all you have to do is to chose one button from each of these button grids.

Immediately after, the chosen chord is displayed on the central frame, the yellow area on the figure shown above.

The central frame displays the chosen mandolin chord graphically, and also by name (on the right).

The graphical image displays only five frets of the mandolin, which is sufficient to display all chords.

When the chord is close to the head, or nut of the instrument, it shows a double vertical line, as in the figure above.

When the chord is on higher frets, it shows a number on top of the first fret; all subsequent fret and number positions are relative to this fret number. This is the standard way of representing mandolin chords.

The string courses are positioned from the viewpoint of a mandolin player, with the instrument on its lap, (mandolin's head on the left, body on the right) looking down at the fretboard, with first string course on top of the image (bottom of the mandolin, further away from you), and fourth string course at the bottom of the image (top of the mandolin, closer to you). Other books and charts represent the chords in different orientation, but we find this way very intuitive.

On the left of the nut, small "o"s or "x"s represent the string courses that are played open ("o"), or, not played at all ("x") on that particular chord.

The circles in pink color represent the fingers, as they are placed on the fretboard.

New, in version 1.1, are chord variations, so you have new ways of doing chords along the fretboard.

For example, if you want alternate ways of doing the previously shown C7 chord, press the [2], or [3] buttons on the green grid, and you will be presented with alternate chord positions:

If you are a newbie, we suggest you learn all the major (M) and minor (m) chords first, followed by the 7ths, 6ths. This covers 80% of the music available, and then gradually, you may learn the most sophisticated chords dim, aug, sus4, etc, as you need them.