If careful set-up and adjustment is important for a steel string guitar to play comfortably and in tune, then the same care and attention is almost essential for a mandolin. There are a few specialist dealers in NZ (and overseas) who set up their instruments to a high standard, but a significant proportion of mandolins are sold with actions too high for serious playing. ...more

Recent reader question deserves full coverage as a Guitar Cool column as I suspect it is a reasonably common issue: ‘There seem to be many jazz-orientated rock songs among the Top 40, on many covers band set lists and played at jam sessions. How can I make the classic pentatonic scale sound jazzy when playing solos over any of those songs?’ While some jazz songs can be difficult to play just pentatonic licks over, two of the songs he apparently had in mind were Moondance and Light My Fire. Luckily both of these have an easy chord progression that do not shift key, so playing pentatonic ideas for a solo should be easy enough. ...more