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Thread: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

  1. #1

    Default What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    I felt it was best in here as there's no general music forum.

    For me it was maybe this -



    I know I wanted an instrument that sounded like that but I wasn't sure exactly what to get. I was even considering a Harp for a while! Then I decided for those high, ringy, fairy tale bard sort of sounds a Mandolin was the best. That opening chord is such a ####### pain to play though!

    I have a pretty interesting story about that song too, I always really liked it back when I watched the show it was used on, but I forgot about it for years. I rediscovered it once or twice after watching the show but then forgot about it again. At some convention or other I heard it playing in the background and it was just so haunting it really grabbed me and I just had to know what it was. I thought it was a Yoko Kanno track since she has a lot of tracks like that(she even composed the B side for that single) but I searched through everything she did and found nothing.

    So then one day I decided to hum it into the soundhound app of my phone... and it picked it up! I was so amazed. And I'm glad I have this song again, and checked out other songs by Akino Arai.

  2. #2
    Dreamer lorrainehornig's Avatar
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Way back in the 70s...Diamond Girl by Seals and Crofts. I saw they were going to be on the Mike Douglas show and Dash Crofts was playing that mandolin and I was captivated (by the mandolin; not Dash Crofts, who was not too shabby himself).
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    "The Pizza Tapes", with songs like "Long Black Veil", got me really interested in playing mandolin; Grisman has a butter smooth tremolo and great style. I've always been a big fan of the stuff he did with Garcia. Honestly though, I think the song that really put the hook in me and got me to buy a mando in the first place was "Route 69" by Jim Richter. I realized that a mandolin is NOT just for bluegrass.
    "If we weren't all crazy, we'd just go insane" - J. Buffett

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    It was the mandolin itself. No particular tunes. (Fact is I didn't recognize a mandolin in a recording or on the radio until after playing for at least 18 months.) I just wanted to play a stringed instrument but I didn't want to be another pseudo lonely five chord guitar strummer playing Simon and Garfunkel, Beatles and Neil Young from a book, like so very many seemed to me at the time.

    I just had this genetic defect that prevented me from feeling comfortable being cool. So I went on to become stereotypically anti-cool, which is no better, and well, the rest is history.

    So with no role models, I just figured the thing out best I could, reading from beginner clarinet books, and just thoroughly enjoying how you could feel like a different person just by holding the instrument.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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    bon vivant jaycat's Avatar
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Ry Cooder - Kentucky Blues
    "The paths of experimentation twist and turn through mountains of miscalculations, and often lose themselves in error and darkness!"
    --Leslie Daniel, "The Brain That Wouldn't Die."

    Some tunes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa1...SV2qtug/videos

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    MandolaViola bratsche's Avatar
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    I just had this genetic defect that prevented me from feeling comfortable being cool. So I went on to become stereotypically anti-cool, which is no better, and well, the rest is history.
    I have the anti-cool gene, as well. It's not a defect! And for me, it was no "song" per se that lured me in, but rather the imagining of what the Bach pieces I already played on viola and violin would sound like if I played them on their plucked counterparts.

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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    It was the mandolin itself. No particular tunes. (Fact is I didn't recognize a mandolin in a recording or on the radio until after playing for at least 18 months.) I just wanted to play a stringed instrument but I didn't want to be another pseudo lonely five chord guitar strummer playing Simon and Garfunkel, Beatles and Neil Young from a book, like so very many seemed to me at the time.

    I just had this genetic defect that prevented me from feeling comfortable being cool. So I went on to become stereotypically anti-cool, which is no better, and well, the rest is history.

    So with no role models, I just figured the thing out best I could, reading from beginner clarinet books, and just thoroughly enjoying how you could feel like a different person just by holding the instrument.
    Hmm that was part of what influenced me too! I wanted something I could transfer guitar skills over to without being guitar. I always kind of thought I was going to learn Violin or Viola but Mandolin makes more sense for me IMO. Maybe I'll learn Violin some day.

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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Old Joe Clark
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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Quote Originally Posted by bratsche View Post
    I have the anti-cool gene, as well. It's not a defect! And for me, it was no "song" per se that lured me in, but rather the imagining of what the Bach pieces I already played on viola and violin would sound like if I played them on their plucked counterparts.
    Among the first "real" music I tried to play on the mandolin was Bach's two and three part inventions. Reason was that Walter Carlos's Switched on Bach, and the Swingle Singers "Bach's Greatest Hits" were played often at home, and I remember folks on FM radio were talking about how Bach in particular was a composer whose music keeps its integrity when played on other instruments. So I thought, mandolin could be one of those instruments. But, as I have commented a few times here on the café, I tried bits and pieces of everything I could find, including Broadway musical soundtrack albums, movie music, whatever.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    "The Pizza Tapes", with songs like "Long Black Veil",
    Is that the one where Dawg flubs the intro and Rice mutters '"wtf was that?" Cracks me up every time.

    For me, no song, but a picker: Frank Wakefield in the Saratoga bars in the 70's.

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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    @Turtle
    Took the words out of my mouth (or fingers I 'spose). It was Grismans tremolos I fell in love with. Thought it was the best sound strings ever made

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    Economandolinist Amanda Gregg's Avatar
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    "Get Up John" from Ricky Skaggs's Bluegrass Rules. I went out and bought a mandolin and then found out that "Get Up John" used cross tuning. Talk about jumping into the deep end.

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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Quote Originally Posted by AlanN View Post
    Is that the one where Dawg flubs the intro and Rice mutters '"wtf was that?" Cracks me up every time.
    Yea, that's the one. Even when he makes the mistake, it still sounds great.
    "If we weren't all crazy, we'd just go insane" - J. Buffett

  18. #14

    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    Among the first "real" music I tried to play on the mandolin was Bach's two and three part inventions. Reason was that Walter Carlos's Switched on Bach, and the Swingle Singers "Bach's Greatest Hits" were played often at home, and I remember folks on FM radio were talking about how Bach in particular was a composer whose music keeps its integrity when played on other instruments. So I thought, mandolin could be one of those instruments. But, as I have commented a few times here on the café, I tried bits and pieces of everything I could find, including Broadway musical soundtrack albums, movie music, whatever.
    Plz plz plz use the name Wendy Carlos, I am trans and I would hate for any of my earlier works to be associated with my male identity. It's actually super offensive since she was forced to keep up the male identity for "professional" reasons at the time even when you can tell from pictures she'd probably already started hormone treatment. There are a bunch of excuses for this but please just take it from a trans person that it's not cool.

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    Registered User BlueMt.'s Avatar
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    For me it was "The Blacksmith" by Planxty then Grisman's Rounder album pushed me over the edge.

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  20. #16
    Member Ivyguitar's Avatar
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Around the Carousel. Scott Napier on the Larry Sparks album Special Delivery. It's Dempsey meets Monroe. Love it.

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    Registered User Jim Ferguson's Avatar
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Quote Originally Posted by lorrainehornig View Post
    Way back in the 70s...Diamond Girl by Seals and Crofts. I saw they were going to be on the Mike Douglas show and Dash Crofts was playing that mandolin and I was captivated (by the mandolin; not Dash Crofts, who was not too shabby himself).
    Same with me Lorraine........I have been a Seals & Crofts fan for many years & it was Dash'samazing mando talents on Diamond Girl & Nine Houses that inspired me........what an amazing talent.
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Probably, Ode to a Butterfly by Nickel Creek. That was when all the stars and money aligned to spur me to get my first mandolin.

    Philadelphia Folk Festival 2001 or so.

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    Registered User G7MOF's Avatar
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    I first heard a tune called " Banish Misfortune" from that point I was hooked!
    I never fail at anything, I just succeed at doing things that never work....


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  26. #20
    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Watching Joe Val and Bobby Osborne in early-'60's Club 47 in Cambridge. I was playing banjo at the time (still do), but decided I liked bluegrass, and around 1970 decided to start a band with my brother and a banjo player. Since I was the only one who owned a mandolin (Gibson A-1 I found in my grandfather's attic), I was elected.

    It's been all downhill since. And Roseweave, I sure do remember Outlaw Star. Still can't figure out why the villainous brothers were named "MacDougall," though. Who at Takehiko Ito's shop came up with that, I wonder?
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Rod Stewart's "Maggie May". That solo is so heart felt IMHO. That being said my biggest influence to keep playing has been Grisman, especially the jazz stuff. He stretches my imagination and certainly redefined what a mandolin can be and do. Funny I started out with violin til my daughter got to good to keep up with, so I bought a mandolin thinking we could switch off with who played fiddle and who played mando. Once we got it and I held it I knew ild found my life time instrument. She's still way better than me but graciously let's me play along.

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Quote Originally Posted by Roseweave View Post
    Plz plz plz use the name Wendy Carlos, I am trans and I would hate for any of my earlier works to be associated with my male identity. It's actually super offensive since she was forced to keep up the male identity for "professional" reasons at the time even when you can tell from pictures she'd probably already started hormone treatment. There are a bunch of excuses for this but please just take it from a trans person that it's not cool.
    Well no offense meant. I was actually hesitant which to use, but I figured since Switched On Bach came out under Walter, that was the most appropriate.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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    Registered User Samuel David Britton's Avatar
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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Greensleeves
    Sam

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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Ripple

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    Default Re: What song made you want to play Mandolin?

    Quote Originally Posted by MandoSam View Post
    Greensleeves
    That's the one that made me want to play violin, at age 8 in a new town at a Christmas Eve service!

    bratsche
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