My name is B.K. Nicholson (Nick for short). I live in Southern California (SoCal), am in my mid-fifties and grew up in a musical home in Philadelphia, PA. My mother is a retired music teacher from the Phila. Public School system. As far back as I can remember, we always had a piano in the house (my first instrument). I studied classical trumpet for 13 years, played trumpet in high school in an R&B cover band, and a jazz-rock band. At 17 I took up guitar, caught the singer-songwriter bug (along with the blues) and at 21 moved to Los Angeles to seek my fame & fortune in the music business. Musically, since that time I've considered my self primarily a song-writer and rhythm guitar player. I never was able to master what we called "double-picking" (flat-picking). After devoting a solid 5 years to chasing my music business dream, I joined the Navy as a Hospital Corpsman, got my nursing license as a result, went back to school later and became a computer programmer, and now work as a database analyst. All along the way I never stopped playing acoustic guitar or writing; I would just take a long hiatus from time to time. Musically I always liked country-rock(Eagles, CSNY, America, Pure-Prairie League, Byrds, etc) so I was exposed minimally to bluegrass and liked what I heard from those artists. I also had an on and off latent desire to one day learn the banjo. In my 4th grade year at a Quaker school that I attended, my teacher was a guy named Mr. Achenbach. He wore preppie clothing, a bowtie, had wire-rimmed glasses and played the banjo. We would beg him to play the Beverly Hillbillies theme, which he grudgingly would do! In 2010 I began looking for jam opportunities and stumbled across a bluegrass jam in Encinitas, CA. After taking my guitar for awhile, I decided to take the plunge and learn banjo. After playing banjo for about 6 months, I decided to try mandolin, as I was exposed to it at the jam and really thought it was cool. Well after getting my first mandolin in Feb 2011, I caught the bug, and while I still play banjo, I consider myself a mandolin player. What is really satisfying to me is that I can flat-pick on the mandolin, wheras I never could nor still can't on the guitar; so creatively I'm doing things in my soloing that I always wanted to do but couldn't. I play any style of music, but primarily play bluegrass. My style is a bluesy-rock n roll style that borrows a lot from my guitar experience. Bill Monroe's style of playing is probably my greatest influence and favorite, though I appreciate certainly other players/styles. That's my journey in an abbreviated nutshell, I look forward to hearing others experiences in their mandolin journey!
LOL! DataNick, that's so much a parallel of my own story, it's spooky. I grew up on the east coast, too (Binghamton, NY), and now live in Oregon. Both my parents were musicians, and my dad was a music teacher in the public schools. My first instrument was piano, too. Then clarinet for my band instrument in school, which I kept up for at least a dozen years. Took up guitar a little earlier than you (age 13, IIRC), but never did the singer/songwriter thing -- studied jazz for several years, then fingerpicking, then classical when I got to grad school. Played all kinds of music in all kinds of groups -- baroque, classical, rock, reggae, jazz, folk, punk -- whatever I could get a gig doing. Couldn't make a living at it, though, so I studied engineering. But... I did a multiple major and crammed some philosophy in there, and then studied music composition in grad school. Supported myself with engineering and computer programming in the corporate world until I burned out on that; now I free-lance computer network support and write grants for non-profits that tickle my fancy. Along the way I picked up the basics on a whole bunch of instruments as part of my composing avocation, before dedciding to really focus on fretted strings, of which my collection includes various guitars, banjos, mandolins, basses, ukes, and a whole raft of South American instruments like requinto, bajo sexto, cuatro, tiple, charango, and my latest, a ronroco (kind of a baritone charango). I still consider guitar to be my main axe, and teach it from time to time. Piano's my strong second, and I can play mandolin well enough to sit in with bands and not embarass myself too badly. I found the secret to impressing people with how many instruments you can play is to learn just one or two characteristic tunes really well on each, and after hearing that, most people will believe you can play anything. So I made sure I learned "Lady of Spain" on accordion, "Third Man Theme" on zither, and "Laura's Theme" on balalaika -- three instruments I otherwise don't really play. My big passion for the last several years has been ragtime; been studying it and writing it for quite a while. It's one of a very few authentically American musics. which I find refreshing after spending so many years studying the music of dead European white guys. I'm particularly interested in trying to locate ragtime pieces that were written especially for guitar, banjo, and mandolin (rather than piano rags arranged for those instruments). I just recently got the site admin to add "ragtime" to one of the "genre" fora, so it will be interesting to see what turns up. I have to say that I'm just starting to scratch the surface of the mandolin world, really. I could rattle off a list of a hundred famous guitarists in 15 genres, but when it comes to mandolin I'm kind of stuck after naming Bill Monroe and Ricky Skaggs. But I'll get there, eventually.
Dr. H, Thank you for sharing your story! It's nice to know there is another "raisin in the oatmeal" out there...definitely stay in touch Bro! Nick
