Mandolin Instrument Guide: The Mandolin Family, A vs F and Your First Mandolin

You've decided to learn the mandolin, maybe because a fiddle tune got stuck in your head or because your jam needs someone to play the chop. Then you look at a wall of mandolins and the questions pile up. Some have a scroll and points while others are a plain teardrop, some have f-holes and some have an oval hole, and the prices run from a few hundred dollars to more than a good used car. This guide walks through the whole mandolin instrument family so that wall starts to make sense.

We'll cover what a mandolin is, how its bigger siblings fit in, whether the scroll changes the sound, and the question we answer more than any other, which mandolin you should start on. The short answer is to buy the best-built mandolin you can, even if it's the plainer shape, because a cheap one hurts to play and makes people quit.

What is a mandolin instrument?

The mandolin is a small, short-scale instrument with eight strings set in four pairs, called courses. You fret and pick each pair together, so every note comes out doubled, and that's where the mandolin's shimmer and its sharp chop in a band come from. It's tuned G-D-A-E, low to high, the same as a fiddle, so fiddle tunes sit right under your fingers. Our guide to tuning a mandolin walks through all eight strings, and our six beginner mandolin chords are the shapes to learn first.

The Eastman 300-series mandolins we start most players on have a 13 7/8" scale, so the frets sit close together and a whole chord fits under one hand. The catch is tension. Mandolin strings are lighter than guitar strings, but you're pressing two of them down at once on a short scale, so it takes more pressure from your fretting hand than most new players expect.

The mandolin came to America from Italy in the late 1800s and found a home in parlor music and the mandolin orchestras of the early 1900s, then in bluegrass, where Bill Monroe's Gibson F-5 set the look most players still picture. His mandolin has its own story in our post on Bill Monroe's 1923 Gibson F-5.

The mandolin instrument family

Each member of the mandolin instrument family keeps the paired strings and the fiddle-style tuning in fifths, so a mandolin player can pick up any of them and find their way around. The bigger ones play lower, for harmony, accompaniment and the bottom end of an ensemble.

Right now we have an Eastman MDA815 F-style mandola at $2,539 and several KR Strings octave mandolins, starting with the flat-top Octolindo S Model Artist at $2,499. Its 21.5" scale gives the low strings room to ring. Our octave mandolin guide covers the models we stock, and every size in the mandolin instrument family lives in our mandolin family collection.

A-style vs F-style: does the scroll change the sound?

An A-style mandolin has the traditional teardrop body, and an F-style adds the scroll by the neck, two points on the lower body and usually a scroll on the headstock. The F-style became the bluegrass look because Bill Monroe played one, and if his main mandolin had been an A-style, we think you'd see everybody playing A-styles today.

Take the back off both and the sound chamber is almost the same. What you pay for on an F-style is the carving, and from what mandolin builders say, the scroll and points come close to doubling the work. A well-built mandolin instrument of either shape starts with a top and back twice as thick as they end up, carved inside and out to an arch and graduated like a violin, so even two of the same model sound a little different.

So we played A and F pairs from three brands blind: the Eastman MD305 and MD315, a Kentucky KM-150 and KM-750, and an A and F from Weber's Yellowstone series. The A-styles leaned a little bottom-heavy and rounded in the low mids, and the F-styles had more bite and a tighter low end that holds up better on a stage next to a banjo and a fiddle. Our favorites still split by brand. We liked the F in the Eastman pair and the A in the Kentucky and Weber pairs, and the Weber A-style was our favorite mandolin of the day.

Jump to the blind test at 4:05, or to our verdicts at 10:57.

Jeremy grew up on F-styles and was biased against A-styles until he saw Adam Steffey take one on the road. He tried it himself, and the A-style he toured with was a monster:

"A-styles can sound just as big and wolfy as an F-style mandolin."

Two practical points matter more than tone for a lot of players. The F-style's lower point keeps the mandolin sitting on your leg when you practice sitting down, while an A-style tends to slide and wants a strap. And the jazz, classical and Celtic players we know almost all prefer the A-style. Our A-style vs F-style comparison goes deeper, and you can shop A-style mandolins and F-style mandolins separately.

Which mandolin should I start on?

This is the question that decides whether a new player sticks with it. You can find an inexpensive guitar that plays well, but it's much harder to find an inexpensive mandolin instrument that does, because of how they're built.

The cheapest mandolins either press a laminated top into an arch, which leaves it too stiff to give much tone, or carve a solid top far thicker than it needs to be so it never sinks under string tension, which also keeps it from sounding like much. Then they ship with the strings sitting high off the fretboard. A beginner without calluses can't get a clean note, it hurts, and the mandolin goes back in the case for good. We've had students bring one in to be set up where fitting a new bridge and doing the rest of the work would have cost more than the difference between their mandolin and a good one.

Here is how we'd choose a first mandolin:

1. Set a floor, not just a ceiling. Our starter mandolins begin above where a lot of stores start, because we've seen players regret buying below that line. The Eastman 300 series is where we'd start someone who means to stick with it.
2. Pick a carved top over a fancy body. A well-built A-style costs less than an F-style of the same quality, because the F-style's extra labor goes into the scroll, not the sound.
3. Check the setup. Low action, a radiused fretboard and a bridge whose foot is shaped to the carved top, with no gaps, make a bigger difference in your first year than any tonewood.
4. Buy the one you'll want to pick up. If the finish makes you reach for it, that counts.

"I would choose a better quality A-style over a lower quality F-style any single day."

We tested that with the Eastman MD305 against a Kentucky KM-150 at nearly the same price. The Kentucky has a nice gloss finish and a dark, hollow, old-time tone some players love, but the Eastman was dramatically easier to play thanks to its radiused fretboard and bigger frets, and it had more definition between notes, so it cuts through a group better. We'd both take the MD305, and the whole shootout is in our Eastman MD305 vs Kentucky KM-150 post.

Jump to why cheap mandolins hold players back at 4:02, or to the verdict at 16:08.

These are the mandolins we'd point a new player toward today, with prices from our site in October 2026:

For a budget under $1,000, our mandolin under $1,000 comparison goes model by model. We're the #1 worldwide dealer for Eastman guitars and mandolins, which is why the starter list leans that way.

Tonewoods, oval holes and f-holes

• Spruce tops are the standard. Adirondack gives more headroom when you dig in, and Engelmann is smoother and rounder.
• Maple backs and sides add brightness and note separation, which helps a mandolin cut through a bluegrass jam.
• Mahogany backs and sides are warmer and darker, a better fit for old-time, folk and singing behind your own voice.
• F-holes push the sound forward with more punch, the classic bluegrass voice.
• Oval holes give a rounder, hollower tone. If you love the mandolin sound on "Losing My Religion", an oval hole gets you close, and our oval hole mandolins are worth a look.

Setup, inspection and the Dread-Not Guarantee

Because setup decides whether a first mandolin gets played, every instrument we sell goes through our 23-Point Professional Inspection before it leaves the shop, including action, intonation and nut slots.

Mandolins at $1,000 and up, like the MD315, the MD605 and everything above them, are covered by our Dread-Not Guarantee: a full year to trade it in for up to 90% of the pre-tax purchase price in credit, less round-trip shipping, plus a 30-day in-home trial. If your first good mandolin leads you to an F-style down the road, that credit goes toward it.

Related reading

• What makes a great mandolin?
• Eastman MD815 vs Bourgeois M5F vs Gold Tone Grandmaster

Finding your mandolin

If you're starting out, get a hand-carved A-style like the MD305 and spend what you save on lessons. If bluegrass is the plan and the F-style look is what gets you practicing, the MD315 is the same build with the scroll. If you want something warmer for folk or singing, try an oval hole, and if you already play and want a bigger, lower voice, the mandola and octave mandolin are the next step up the mandolin instrument family. Every mandolin instrument we have in stock is in our mandolins collection, and if you're not sure which way to go, call us and we'll help you sort it out.