considering quitting the mandolin

[kevbuch]

I love the mandolin and have been having a blast but mine is just so crummy.. it's a jbp with the laminate kind of peeling, a bent inward bridge and I can't get it to sound good. I'm kind of obsessive compulsive about these things and I really cant play without thinking of how everybody else sounds so great. I went to a jam session and felt like my playing was like nails on a chalkboard compared to everybody else. With my budget it will take a long long time to save up for a cheap Kentucky and I will have to give up tv and basically everything other than practicing for like year. I can't do that because I already spend so much time just sleeping or staring at the ceiling. I'm considering just giving up because I can't play for or with others like this. What do you guys think?

[Bertram Henze]

Music has been good to you so far. It won't give up on you if you don't give up on it. Something will turn up sooner or later.
Never curse an uncomfortable situation - it's always there to teach you something, and you'll find out what.

[Petrus]

I don't know how long you've been playing but maybe you're not ready to jam just yet. I've only been playing a couple of years casually and no way would I feel comfortable jamming in a "real" group. Play to satisfy yourself first and foremost. Play with non-musician friends once in a while but make sure you're the only one there with an instrument. If you can play one note you can play another one. There's always someone who's better than you musically, but you can always improve yourself day by day. Be your own benchmark. Play in the experimental genre, where no one can judge you because there is no standard.

You're welcome to join my notional band, Zero Fret and the F Holes. We cheer up the patients at St. Elsewhere.

Edit: Look up Daniel Johnston, Jandek, and Wesley Willis on YouTube. My latest musical heroes!

[roysboy]

Maybe mandolin just isn't for you . It does take a commitment... Financial and time wise .... No way around that. Sounds like you've given it a shot , at least. Playing an instrument isn't a life and death thing . Let it go...move on.... Do something you CAN commit to. No big deal .

[delsbrother]

Put a chord chart on the ceiling.

[Tom Coletti]

It's completely understandable if you dont think that the mandolin is for you, but remember that your difficulties are not a sign of failure; everyone has been in that position, and indeed, a lot of them still are. I hit road blocks and limitations all the time. Everyone starts with inexperience, lack of resources, frustration, doubt, and so on. Learning to play an instrument is a daunting, time-consuming endeavor, and it will take a while to get a feel for it, but if you're willing to practice, then you can do it. It'll take a lot of hard work, but if you can find people to experience music with, then you won't be alone in the struggle. And for the OCD/fear of incompetence, just let things happen. Don't be afraid to mess up at a jam. I believe that a famous painter once said that "we don't make mistakes, we just have happy accidents."

Instrument-wise... Have you talked with Dan at Grand Central Music? He usually carries some Kentucky A's; maybe you can work out a trade-in deal. He also occasionally carries other similar models. If either of those fail, then eBay would be a great shot at getting a good used Kentucky, sometimes for less than $100 if you're lucky/diligent. Even as the owner of a Breedlove, I've really liked the playability and tone of the Kentucky A's.

--Tom

[Ray(T)]

Do you drink, smoke, drive a car or have any other expensive passtimes?

[dang]

I found a blue Washburn oval hole mandolin (laminate) at a local music store for $150 and was shocked at how good it sounded. No, not a Weber or Collings but it was certainly playable after some minor setup by myself. Had it been my starter mandolin (instead of the junk I got) I would have put many more hours in before upgrading. Though some of us here that argue you need to spend $XXXX to get an entry level mandolin, in truth it is your time spent practicing that determines how good you sound.

It sounds to me like you need to be resourceful and find a functional bridge on a budget. Learn how to fit it to the top. Learn the basics of setup so you can get the most out of your current instrument. Understand what bridge compensation, neck relief, string height, well cut nut and bridge slots contribute to playing easily and in tune across the fretboard. Many of us here learned that way on our starter mandolins, doing the work ourselves because there is no one around who knows anything about the mandolin.

Then after YEARS of practicing and saving up you get to buy an instrument that you wouldn't dream of trying to set up yourself because it is such a piece of beauty. And you get to rejoice in the ability you have worked so hard at, and are thankful to play such a fine instrument.

[Petrus]

Inspirational quotes from W.A. Mathieu, The Listening Book: Discovering Your Own Music.

Music is everyone's birthright, and everyone who wants to can claim it. There will always be someone more musical than you, but there is always more music in you to uncover.

Anythinig that requires uninterrupted consciousness seems like work. When we are actually practicing consciousness, like meditation or music, it feels like good work that does itself. But when we are inactive, there is an anxiety around it; inertia is our defense.

Whether or not you actually practice, spend some time hanging out with your resistance.

Technique is rarely your limit. The weak link is the ear. What is truly needed is to hear more deeply and to know more precisely where you are on the coordinates of musical space and time.

When you can play what you hear, you will know naturally what technique to practice, and you will want to.

There's not much to learn and it takes forever.

A musician can spend a lifetime learning five notes and still not know everything in them. The more masterful you become, the deeper becomes the mystery and the more you are a beginner.

A few of my own:

Never play with anyone better than you.

If you make a mistake, repeat it. Now it's a style.

[mrmando]

I dunno, I kind of wanna be the worst musician in the room, so I can be challenged by and learn from those around me.

kevbuch, where are you located? Maybe you can't afford a new mandolin, but if you can save enough for a setup job it might make a difference. Knowing a little about your circumstances from your previous posts, I want to encourage you not to quit. I just looked in my bag of spare parts and there are four bridges in there; I can send you one of them for your mandolin, although you will still have to either get someone to fit it for you or get some sandpaper and fit it yourself.

[UsuallyPickin]

Any new endeavor takes awhile to get off the ground. There is always a learning curve that requires patience and effort to surmount. Having poor tools is a one of the many pitfalls to be crossed. If you truly love to play , you will play, and you will figure out a way to acquire what you need to play better . Be that lessons , a new instrument , better practice habits or the right jam. More than anything though is just the refusal to give up. Learning fiddle is even worse, trust me. Just to make a pleasant sound on a simple melody with one takes years. I'm on year thirteen now and like to fiddle. I had to make myself practice at first because it was noise not music. Keep at it ... in time you will be glad you did..... R/

[belbein]

. I'm kind of obsessive compulsive about these things and I really cant play without thinking of how everybody else sounds so great

Giving up the TV isn't such a bad idea, actually. TV just reinforces our feelings of inferiority.

If you're really serious about this post--and I can't tell if it's not a put on--then this sentence is the problem. Some people are always going to be better, no matter how good you get. And some jams are going to have people who make a habit of looking down on others no matter how good they are. So if you can't get over this, you should quit, but then you'll have to quit every other thing you do with people, because it's the same in golf, tennis, writing, gardening, lawyering, whatever.

If you want to get over it, you'll have to change the self-talk you're punishing yourself with, and that means therapy, or meditation, or programming your thoughts with affirmations ... but any way you slice it, no mandolin is going to fix this issue.

[Bertram Henze]

If you're really serious about this post--and I can't tell if it's not a put on--then this sentence is the problem. Some people are always going to be better, no matter how good you get.

This is exactly one of the things I meant by "teaching you something" - do not run away from it, face it and make peace with it. Then you'll be winning what money can't buy. Music and instruments are not supposed to be a protective shield against human encounters - they are for enforcing such encounters, and we all desperately need that, if we like it or not.

[pheffernan]

Knowing a little about your circumstances from your previous posts, I want to encourage you not to quit.

I have similar thoughts. It seemed like you had such a positive initial experience of the mandolin, as so many of us have, that your thoughts jumped from the beater you've started on to possibilities in the $1000-$1500 range. In the process, I think you bypassed the intermediate level of instruments, which is where I'd urge you to turn your sights. If you could afford the $60 in monthly payments for The Mandolin Store, as you were projecting, then you are only five months away from saving up enough for a Kentucky 150 like this one: http://www.themandolinstore.com/scri...idproduct=8697. Or perhaps a helpful relative, like your supportive grandfather I believe, could loan you the money to acquire the mandolin now and allow you to pay him back. Either way, don't let your frustration with your current instrument turn you off of the mandolin entirely.

[Beanzy]

I think it's been way too short a time playing for you to jack it in.
You're already playing next to others within a few months, that's a heck of an achievement.
I owned my mandolin about 14 months before I dared go out and jam with people. I sounded rubbish for a long while and choked up any tone I may have been capable of by being intimidated by everyone elses ability. Then I got talking to them and realised most had been at this kind of stuff since I was in daipers. I carried on turning up and resolved to carry on.

From reading your previouis posts I reckon you've already got a stack of hurdles out of your way and by the sounds of things you just leaped over another one.
You're listening to how others sound in relation to you. Yes you don't like the difference at the moment, but you've not given it the time to bed-in yet. Many people attend jams and never really get that listening thing going at all. Don't rush it, there's no way the skills will be there yet to pull your best tone out of the instrument you have. But now you're hearing where you want to be and it's frustrating that you can't just do it.
Rather than being frustrated with what is really pretty rapid progress already, set aside a short time to talk to the people whos sound you would like to achieve. Ask them what they think makes it work for them. Remember they've taken until now to get as good as they are, maybe find out how long that is.

I'd say just take it steady and allow a year to see just what tone you can pull out of the mandolin you have.
This music playing and learning is a life long-path but we take many steps on it.
The jams and playing with others is like the dance at the crossroads where you celebrate what you can do together.
If your shoes (instrument) are a bit cheap or tatty you can still step along the path to the crossroads, you can still skip out a jig or two with the others. By the time that instrument is completely clapped out you'll be able to make it sound a million bucks anyway.

[AlanN]

The goal is to be inspired by the better players, not intimidated by them.

And a well-playing mandolin is a necessity.

[Matt DeBlass]

There will always be better players, and the way I look at it is I learn from watching them. A nicer instrument helps, but as long as the notes are in the right places, plunking away at an inferior instrument still prepares you for the day you can get a better one. I understand it's tough and finances can be a problem (I just lost a job myself) but I've always found that music helps keep me together during the tough times.
On the other hand, if you're feeling frustrated, maybe you need a break. Sometimes a week off from playing is just what the doctor ordered. I don't know man, but out of all the reasons to give up on playing "I'm not good enough yet" shouldn't be one of them.

[Petrus]

Some of them old-timer players made legendary work with instruments they bought from a Sears Roebuck catalog, recording in one of those old booths where you'd put a quarter in the machine and make a record directly onto a wax disc. The thought of spending what would've amounted to more than a year's pay for an instrument would have left them aghast and incredulous.

Django Reinhardt once played a whole set on a toy guitar, borrowed from a local circus clown, because he had forgotten his instrument in his wagon the night before during a drunken debauch. His fingers were cut up and bloody by the end of the set, but those present report he played wonderfully. He never took very good care of his instrument either, carrying it around wrapped in newspaper and making adjustments to the bridge by sticking torn pieces of matchbooks under it.

This was also a guy who was a hotshot as a teenager, already on his way up, when one night he fell asleep with a lit cigarette in his gypsy caravan and nearly burned to death. Several of the fingers on his fretting hand were ruined and immobile forever after, and he spent a tortuous couple of years literally re-learning how to play from scratch with this permanent fretting limitation. He learned how to make the sound he wanted with only his left thumb and two fingers, and went on to achieve his greatest success after that. You'd think that woulda been enough to get most folks to quit.

Not everyone has to be a virtuoso (and sorry that that's a guitar story, but I don't have a similar mandolin story at hand) but I still find it inspiring to think about any time I feel like quittin'.

[fatt-dad]

music is another language. Baby's don't do well in universities. Babel on with your noodling and care not about others. Tackle a few scales, maybe a fiddle tune or so. Play slow, correct the wrong notes. Do it when watching football, basketball or any reality show! Heck, any/all commercials are ripe for a few dozen notes.

When learning it's an easy foil to claim others are better. O.K. They're better. Who cares?

Somewhere I learned a quote, "I don't sing because I'm happy. I'm happy because I sing." Music does that.

f-d

[Bob Clark]

Hi Kevbuch,

I assume that we all go through times when we are really into our playing, and other times when we are less into it. During those down times, it is important to remember that the up times exist and are meaningful to you. That will help you to persevere and ultimately, become a better player. You have a distinct advantage in that regard; you have the thread you began a short while back in which you told us very sincerely how much your music means to you, and how it has improved your life. Go re-read what you wrote then and how we responded. That was real, not that this is any less real, but please use those words of yours to keep you going now. We really want to see you succeed. You can do it. The joy will return.

I wish you all the best,

Bob

[bmac]

Although you don't give your age or the brand of your instrument you sound like a teenager sitting around waiting for life to happen.... The news is, "It ain't going to." You haven't even explored your mandolin yet... The bridge and its straighntess is your responsibility just as much as tuning your own instrument is, as well as replacing strings and glueing back separating plywood. Bridges are cheap, as is Elmers Glue.

A cheap mando is not an excuse for bad playing. The only excuse for bad playing is tone deafness. But it is not the instruments fault.

So I suggest you give up and throw away your instrument... Maybe in five or six years you will be mature enough to see something like this through, but presently you probably should just sit and watch the tube. Remember: There is always a home for you in your parents' basement.

[Steve Zawacki]

If the issue is that your mandolin has worn out and the budget isn't ready for a $300 new one, the logical alternative is get what you can afford. A new Rover RM-50 set-up and delivered runs between $150-170, a Rover RM-35 at around $100, and a Rogue 100 is less than $50 at the big-box stores. It's all a matter of desire - do you want to play the mandolin or not? If you do, then you do what is the first rule of anything - never buy above your ability to pay; followed by rule #2 - make the most of what you have.

[jaycat]

I don't see anything wrong with staring at the ceiling. I spend a of time just looking out the window. It's called "meditation."

[Shelagh Moore]

If you like it, stick with it. It'll come good.

[multidon]

You say you love the mandolin. If that statement is true but you must fo it on the cheap I recommend getting a Rogue from Musicians Friend for 50 bucks and then ask Rob Meldrum for his free e book on doing your own set up. It wont be set up out of the box but maybe the only thing that will be truly necessary is to adjust the bridge height. Invest in a set of 5 dollar feeler gauges from your local auto parts store to check action at the bridge and the nut. If thats too much do like the old timers did and use a dime for the nut and a nickel for the 12 th fret. It will be plywood but it will sound like a mandolin and play as well as anything else if properly set up. As far as jams try to talk to some of the people there and find out if there is a slow jam anywhere near you. Slow jams are just like they sound like. Usually half tempo for beginners. If you have trouble with that speed listen watch and learn. Be like a sponge and soak up whatever you can. I hope you are joking about not having time to practice because of staring at the ceiling. Remember if something is worth doing it is worth putting time and effort into it.

I am a retired music teacher. Been playing music for almost 50 years. And I still dont know everything and I still feel inadequate about my playing sometimes. To me thats what makes music interesting. Its impossible for there not to be something new to learn. You have given it what 2 months?

There is a social group here on the Cafe' called Cheap Mandolins I think where people actually revel in and celebrate the cheapos. They often discuss ways to make them better. You should check it out maybe join the group and participate. Tell those folks exactly whats wrong with that cheapo of yours and they might help you out.