B m7 on Mandolin, and the Number That Writes It

B m7 spells B – D – F# – A. That much is fixed. What is not fixed is what it is CALLED: hand the same chord to a chart in A and it is written 2; hand it to a chart in B and the identical chord is written 1, on a page nobody had to rewrite.

B answers to the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and the 7 depending on what got called: it is a plain number in 7 of the twelve keys and needs an accidental in the other 5.

A mandolin player reads a number and the two and the four — the chop lands on the backbeat whatever the digit is, so the chart tells this player where to put a chord, never when. The digit decides which four courses get stopped; the count-off already decided when, and no mark on the page argues with it.

Every shape below is drawn for GDAE, 4 courses, open shapes first and movable ones after them, and each one plays back — because the fastest way to check that a number was read right is to hear it.