F# Dorian — Mandolin

F# Dorian carries 7 notes per octave (modes family), drawn here across the Mandolin's GDAE courses with every root marked — melody is this instrument's first language, and these maps are its phrasebook.

Minor with a raised 6th (natural 6) — soulful, smooth, and less dark than natural minor. The quintessential jazz-minor and blues mode.

Heard in: "So What" (Miles Davis), "Oye Como Va" (Santana), "Eleanor Rigby" (Beatles) — rock, blues, funk, jazz.

Pure fifths make scales symmetrical: the finger pattern that plays mandolin notes on one course pair plays them on every other pair, so one shape learned is twelve keys owned — the same geography a violin player bows, which is why fiddle tunes fall so naturally under these fingers.

Pick each note cleanly with alternating strokes before you ever tremolo it, and let the audio set the pitch in your ear as you go.