It started a few years back when there was a kind of mini-vogue in having a bit of mandolin sound in non-traditional types of music...Bruce Springsteen, John Cougar Mellencamp and like that. And yes, a lot of guitar players pick up a mandolin and try to strum it like a guitar. It ain't my favourite approach to the instrument, but sounds OK with a good player doing it. But nothing can beat a good mandolin chop. I don't really understand why you'd want to make it sound like a guitar, as a rhythm instrument, when it has it's own great sound.

It's all whether you have a mando right hand or a guitar right hand, I guess...

W-O