At what point do I admit I'm a mandolinist?

[ukrobbiej]

Just sharing some thoughts. I took up the mandolin (octave variety) about 3 years ago when a friend leant me a Tobin. I then got myself a very nice Weber Yellowstone (foolishly up for sale, but maybe I need to rethink that!).

Having been almost exclusively a guitarist since the age of 14, I find myself in the strange position now of only wanting to pick up my mandolin. I get home from work and all I want to do is get my mandolin out. I will play it for sometimes 2 to 3 hours an evening (if I have time), and my guitars (two very nice ones) hardly get a look in. I even run a mandolin orchestra, where I consider its members to be some of my best friends now When I'm jamming with people, I often find myself happiest and most creative behind the mandolin.

Its got me thinking about what it is about this wonderful instrument that I find so addictive: I think its the fact that I can play it with other people. My guitars have given me much joy in my life, and have sometimes got me through some very hard times, as a kind of musical therapy, but it can be a very lonely existence. Now, there is nothing I love more than to play with other musicians, be it arrangements I have made, Baroque ensemble music, and some of the many wonderful arrangements I have found via this forum.

I sometimes worry that I am not playing my guitar, as if somehow I am going to forget all my repertoire, or be wasting a talent, but the mandolin has given me the joy of learning something new, playing in an ensemble, and I am really enjoying its sound. Maybe it is time I thought of myself as a mandolinist

I wonder if other people have had similar journeys?

Robbie

[DataNick]

Robbie,

It's the "Ancient Tones"...you're a convert like the rest of us...deal with it...LOL!


It is the coolest instrument, isn't it?

Best to ya Bro!

[Robert Smyth]

You're a mandolinist...don't worry about your guitar repertoire, it'll be there when you need it. I hardly touch my guitars anymore but when I do, it all comes back fairly easy. I hardly play my electrics anymore but do pick up my acoustic guitars once in a while. Mostly play mandolin and have a mandola to play as well, which is a lot of fun.

I started playing guitar when I was around 11 or so, played extensively for years until I felt like I was plateauing. I went to a guitar teacher to see if I could jump-start my guitar playing and he said maybe I should try a different instrument. At first I was pissed off at the teacher but he was right. I picked up the mandolin when I was about 37 and have been playing ever since (thanks to Jerry Garcia and Old & In The Way, I got into bluegrass hardcore). My mandolin helped unlock some of my challenges on the guitar and obviously all the work I'd previously done on guitar and music theory paid dividends on my mandolin playing.

Also, if you check Mandolin Cafe more than three times a day, you're a mandolinist!

[bigskygirl]

I too began playing guitar very young (I really should be much better than I am) and took it back up a few years ago when my dad was dying. Then I bought a mandolin on a whim and can't put it down, I play the guitar a bit but after a few moments I want to play the mando...it is an addictive little thing.

For me the user friendly fifths tuning is more logical and easier for me to get around the fretboard, not to mention is has less...well, more actually...strings than the guitar.

I actually find it easier to learn something on the mamdo and then take it to the guitar so overall I am getting better on both...

[OldGus]

A lot of people have gone from guitar to mandolin. I am one of them although I still play guitar a bit. You can admit you are a mandolinist the moment you find out you'll know, usually there will be a crowd forming around you.

[BrianWilliam]

Now!

[darrylicshon]

I started on violin around year 10 studied classical for 7 years. Then played violin in rock bands. Then i finally got a guitar at age 25 played in bands with guitar sometimes violin. Then around 35 i bought a Ibanez 70's mandolin only $100 couldn't pass it up played it off and on until age 40 which then i spent 1/4 on mandolin and 3/4 giitar at this point i had around 40 guitars and 7 mandolins. The last few years i have almost played mandolin only, every once in awhile i pick up a guitar. Now i have around 20 guitars and almost 30 mandolin family instruments. Every time I pick up the guitar it all comes right back.

MANDOLIN RULES

[jetsedgwick]

I could post the identical post. I'm new-ish to mandolin, < 2 years, but I'd play it everyday if I could. My poor guitars feel neglected. It's just familiar enough to be easy to pick up but just enough of a challenge to be fun.

Good luck Robbie

[Harold The Barrel]

Is there such a vibrant support group for (electric(!)) bass guitar to mandolin converts? If so, that is what I will tell my family I'm thankful for tomorrow at dinner.

I *love* the rich, resonant sound of my cheapo a-style archtop fumbling slowly through exercises in a warm, wooden kitchen with bread baking in the oven. Its sound is so perfectly homespun and pretty. I get mad at it from time to time, but I keep coming back.
As others have said: You're no crazier than the rest of us.

[keithb]

Count me in.

I started guitar at around 13 years old, played in a bunch of rock and folk bands for 20 years, bought my first mandolin in April of last year, and now it's the first instrument I reach for. I have a bunch of nice guitars that don't get nearly the attention they deserve!

[Austin Bob]

I can still remember the day, almost 30 years ago now. I was living in an apartment building full of a wild assortment of Austin characters, and one spring day a guy down the way invited me to jam with him out by the pool. We both played guitar, but he also had a cheap Epiphone mandolin with rusty strings and a bent tuner for the bottom A string, along with a Mel Bay chord book. He invited me to try the mandolin, and after I figured out how to kinda sorta jam in G using the chord book, I was hooked. I bought the mando from him for two payments of $30, and never looked back.

The guitar will always be my first love, but I play the mandolin 80% of the time in public, and maybe 70% of the time at home. It is addictive, and I love the sound of a guitar and mandolin duet.

Sounds like you have the same compulsion to play the mandolin that most of us here have. There is no cure, only continued enjoyment.

[Mandoplumb]

I started on mandolin at about 8 moved to guitar as a second instrument a couple years later at one point I considered myself both a guitarist and mandolinist. I think if you can play reasonably difficult tunes without falling on your face you can consider yourself playing that instrument. Unfortunately I have problems with my hands and can't hardly reach around a guitar neck now so if someone asks what I play I say I can play at several instrument but the mandolin is the only one I really play

[Dave LaBoone]

You're a musician. A mandolinist and a guitarist. Don't worry about the guitar repertoire- by playing music (any instrument), you'll be increasing your skills and your ear especially. I'm with you - my guitars don't get much play these days, as I've been won over by the mandolin!
Best,
Dave

[Kip Carter]

Dave's right... you're a musician... I thought I was done with the mandolin and sold mine back in the spring only to be jonesing big time and finally buying my new Eastman last week making me the happiest Guitamandolist on the planet. I find myself parked on a keyboard, sitting behind a set of drums, playing one of my many guitars, if it has strings and made of wood I wanta play it, it simply doesn't matter. The magic is our connection to the music and perhaps the reason the mandolin is so endearing is the fact that because of it's size it is like a puppy that you can cuddle with in the folds of your arms... I have no idea... but it is special. I know that because of the pain I suffered getting back after being away. I'll not be doing that again.

Kip...

[WW52]

When I got to the point that I could more or less hold my own in a session with my mandolin and play it at gigs with a band, I started thinking of myself as a mandolin player, or I guess I could say mandolinist. When I started becoming proficient with the mandolin, I quit lugging my guitar around regularly. Being a mandolin (and tenor banjo) player made gave me a sense of uniqueness that I didn't get with the guitar. I'd say if you start to think of yourself as a mandolinist then that's just what you are.

[zedmando]

I still consider myself a guitar player first & foremost--it's what I've played the longest & enjoy the most.
But I am also a bass player and a rookie mandolin player--no reason I can think of that I have to just be one.

[Bertram Henze]

[WW52]

I still consider myself a guitar player first & foremost--it's what I've played the longest & enjoy the most. But I am also a bass player and a rookie mandolin player--no reason I can think of that I have to just be one.

Nope, no rules say one has to limit himself. I'm a mandolin player when I'm playing mandolin and also for the purpose of the discussion topic here; a banjo player when I'm playing the banjo, and an "anything else" player when I'm playing anything else.

[zedmando]

Well, yeah...

[JeffD]

There is a bigger, or at least to me more significant boundary to cross. That was when did I become a mandolinist, as opposed to someone who can play some tunes on the mandolin. When can I play the mandolin itself.

It tool a long time. I felt like I can do this or that on the mandolin, and I know umpty ump tunes on the mandolin, but stuff I don't know I don't know. So when can I claim I can play the mandolin.

It was a while before I could feel it.

[zedmando]

Hmm, in some ways & contexts--but I considered myself a guitarist as soon as I started learning how to play it.
But with bass I didn't think of myself as a bassist right away--not until I started to enjoy it--I was a reluctant bass student at first.

So it also involves desire to me.
Now I embrace bass player/bassist.

Mandolinist though does have a loftier sound to it.
But if I play it--the I am one--maybe not a good one, but so far I have more used phrases such as "learning mandolin" or "rookie mandolin player"

[David Lewis]

It seems to me that if you want to be a mandolin player, you say you are one.

Loved your post.

[Lord of the Badgers]

He is one. Too modest though - Rob's a fabulous guitarist, but as I always say... Guitars have too many sodding strings - Fifths is the way to go!
As for mandolin, he's bloody good at it & will only get better and easily outstrip my abilities. The only I problem I get at Rob's is if I take my Forster Gzouk - I have trouble getting it back home!!

[Nashville]

I have a good friend who immigrated to the USA and so English was her 2nd language. She did study hard to learn English and practiced everyday of course. One day she excitedly told me that she had started dreaming in English and it was the tipping point for her. She was now a mandolinist, I mean, she was now a real English speaker. And she just got better and better at it.

[JeffD]

So we should wait till we start dreaming in mandolin.