How is the mandolin played?

The Neapolitan mandolin is tuned like a violin and played with a pick, as the V&A describes its 1772 Vinaccia example. The older Milanese type was played with the fingertips instead. In Carnatic music U. Srinivas played a five-string electric mandolin, which Real World Records describes as resembling the Western mandolin but fitted with a contact microphone.