Are these real mandolin chord shapes or converted guitar charts?

Every diagram is voiced from the instrument’s own tuning and courses. Nothing here is a six-string chart with strings deleted — the mandola, mandocello, and bouzouki pages are each drawn from their own open strings.

Do the mandola and mandocello get their own pages?

Yes. All four family sizes plus the Irish bouzouki have full chord, scale, progression, and exercise references — five instruments, each treated as a first-class citizen rather than a footnote to the mandolin.

What separates the octave mandolin from the Irish bouzouki here?

Tuning and role. The octave mandolin keeps the family’s G–D–A–E in fifths an octave down; the bouzouki tunes G–D–A–D, trading symmetry for drones, and lives here as the session’s backing voice.

Can I learn the fiddle tunes without reading notation?

Yes — every tune in the vault ships first-position tab with playback, so you can learn Soldier’s Joy or Old Joe Clark phrase by phrase entirely by ear and fret number.

Is any of this paid or account-gated?

No. Every reference page, drill, tune, and tool on Mandolin Warrior is free and works without an account, on any device with a browser.

Eight Strings, One Voice

Every page here speaks mandolin as a first language: paired GDAE courses, fifths logic, and tune-player priorities — never guitar charts with strings removed.

Mandolin Chords Fiddle Tunes Scales Tuner

Free, playable chord and scale references for all four mandolin-family sizes and the Irish bouzouki — every diagram drawn for paired courses on the instrument’s own tuning, never adapted from guitar.

Choose Your Instrument

Five double-course voices, one system: the four family sizes step down in fifths exactly like the violin family they mirror, and the Irish bouzouki brings its GDAD drones along.

Mandolin

Tuned G–D–A–E in fifths
8 strings in 4 paired courses
The soprano voice — the fiddle’s twin

Mandola

Tuned C–G–D–A in fifths
A fifth below the mandolin
The alto voice — the viola’s twin

Octave Mandolin

Tuned G–D–A–E, an octave down
Long scale, ringing drones
The tenor voice of the family

Mandocello

Tuned C–G–D–A, deep
An octave below the mandola
The cello’s double-course twin

Irish Bouzouki

Tuned G–D–A–D
Drone-friendly backing voice
The session cousin of the family

What Lives Here

Chords

Every key and quality voiced as double-course shapes, with the tones named on each course.

Scales

Melody maps with the root pinned, laid out so the fifths symmetry does the memorising for you.

Fretboard Explorer

Light up any set of notes across the courses and see what your hands are actually standing on.

Progressions

Each key’s chord family, arranged for backing tunes and songs at the session.

Exercises

Daily picking and course-crossing drills with tab and playback built in.

Fiddle Tunes

The shared fiddle repertoire in first-position tab — derived from the tune, verified by CI.

Chord of the Day

One shape a day, picked by the same network-wide seed every Warrior site agrees on.

Technique Guides

Tremolo, double stops, and the guitar-or-violin crossing guide — the “why” behind the reference pages.

Gear, Without the Fog

First-instrument checks, A-style vs F-style honestly, and string-change day made simple.

Free Tools

Tuner, metronome, and theme builder — free, in the browser, no sign-up.

How It Works

Pick Your Size

Mandolin, mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello, or bouzouki — every reference page is drawn for the instrument it names, courses and all.

See It In Courses

Diagrams speak the instrument’s own language: paired courses, tones named per course, and the fifths logic that makes one shape work in twelve keys.

Play It In

Playback on every shape, drills with tab and sound, and a fiddle-tune vault to point it all at — your ear vets a shape before your fingers learn it.

The Double-Course Home

Mandolin Warrior is the Warrior Network’s deep home for the whole double-course family. Where our sister sites go wide across twenty-plus instruments, this one goes deep: every chord, scale, drill, and tune on these pages is built from the mandolin family’s own tunings and priorities, with playback everywhere so the sound leads and the chart follows.

Go Deeper

Guides and references worth bookmarking: tremolo · double stops · coming from guitar or violin · fiddle tunes · your first mandolin · A-style vs F-style · strings · all tools. Want the same chord on guitar, banjo, or 20+ other string instruments? String Warrior compares them all.