ABitRusty said
nice tune @stringy. do you still have the mandola? sounds great.

  

I do Greg, it’s nothing special made by pilgrim, not played it for quite a while now though because of fiddle. Thanks all for your comments and for having a listen, I had forgotten I had recorded this and came across it last night .

Hello mouse, in answer to your question I use my fingers on this as I do on most of the fretted instruments I play. Not played this for ages now, same as five and four string banjos and guitar, I never get the time unfortunately. Can't remember what I had this tuned to for this vid, think it was gdad, but it could have been fiddle tuning. All the pairs are tuned together like a 12 string guitar, but sometimes g for instance may be tuned in a lower and higher octave, no real rules to it to be honest, it can be tuned many ways, like drop d on guitar, easy to tune by the way.

Bouzouki is different however in the way that is played, instead of across the neck its played down the neck, chords can be quite a stretch on Bouzouki as well. In Gdae tuning they are easier though, I usually play Bouzouki in gdad tuning, some people call the mandola a Bouzouki but it isn't.

Octave Mandola which is what this is, is bigger than a mandola, which in turn is bigger than a mandolin