The story I never stop telling

[Scott Tichenor]

Saw this on the web: Wickenburg, Arizona festival (http://www.wickenburgsun.com/articles/2005/11/11/news/news01.txt) and couldn't help it.

Everyone around my parts has heard this story too many times but I've yet to spring it on the web... I think. It was 1990 or close to that year, and I was playing in the Wickenbrug mandolin contest. Lots of talented mandolin players. I played Little Rock Getaway and Peaches and Cream and smoked 'em both, as good as I could play them back then when I had pretty big chops. I'm sure I had a "tude" afterwards. "Yea, this one's mine" I thought. Talking to some folks and suddenly there was a mandolin explosion from stage. The entire festival stopped and turned to watch a tiny little kid playing mandolin with sound and technique that was out of this world. He had on a ball cap and was swinging his legs back and forth from the folding chair. His legs weren't even touching the ground. And what do you suppose his name was? At that point I was in second place. Wasn't even close. Wasn't close by miles. I got second.

He's famous, but I get to tell the story, and rarely pass up the chance to do so. What's his name?

[John Rosett]

i got dusted by a 12 year old at a mandolin contest once. a real lesson in humility.
that was the last contest for me.

[Russ Jordan]

Chris Thile?

[glauber]

Glauber Ribeiro?

[MandoRebel]

Uuuh, Bill Monroe. OK, OK, David Grisman.

[Keith Newell]

The kids dad wasn't named Del was it?
Keith

[Scott Tichenor]

Glauber Ribeiro?
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzt. That's incorrect Glauber. The correct answer is:

Chris Thile

And what does our winning contest receive, Bob?

[glauber]

Oh, sorry. I thought you were a lot older. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[mythicfish]

Scott ... just one of those "facts of life": Ever notice that child prodigies are almost always in the fields of
music and mathematics? Both are "notational systems" with the symbols representing discrete entities. They
lend themselves to becoming hard-wired into the brain at a young age. Chess fits into this paradigm but is slightly more
nuanced. As the brain "matures" it becomes more difficult to assimilate the mechanics of thes systems, but theres
plenty of room for the more nuanced elements.
In the past, when I've played in public, I've tried to leave the audience with the feeling "Hey, I could do that !"
That my rationalization for the day!

Curt

[Jim Roberts]

The winning contestant gets a new (state of the art)Mandolin Cafe Tee Shirt!

[Greg H.]

Scott, I can definitely commensurate. In '75 I was competing in that big guitar contest down the road from you, and really aced my tunes. I even broke a string and accepted an unfamiliar guitar from another picker (which I thought would surely give me an edge) when this 14 year old comes along and smokes everyone even thinking about competing that year. I ended up in third after that.
Of course the fact that the kid also smoked everyone in the fiddle contest and took second in the mandolin contest should have provided some relief (and the fact that I was only 16 at the time) but. . . .

This kid ended up rather famous too. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[GTison]

Scott, You can say that with pride now, that you got beat by Thile, But I back then bet you felt schooled!

... only time I ever entered a serious contest, I lost to A KID, and I didn't think he was that good ,but he was cute. But what hurt was that he must have been better than me. .... hmph, contest, BAH, HUMBUG!

[Richard Russell]

Man, I love hearing stories like this! I just wish that I was the "KID" that someone was telling about in their mandolin contest story! I'd even settle for being the "OLD MAN" in someone's story some day, years from now...that's the only chance I have at this point!

[HarmonyRexy]

Kids... you gotta love 'em.

Greg, who was your contest's Super Kid? http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif Inquiring Minds want to know.....

[Martin]

I'm a guessin ... Mark Oconner

[skippy]

The Jay Buckey site had a video where the file name said 1991, but the title said 1994. In this video a yound Thile played at the same contest Scott talked about. It was on his page for a while, but now is notably absent (I wonder if a call from NC management took that down) I snagged a copy, it's pretty interesting. He played slower tune that I didn't recognize (lots of ornementation made it "feel" fast though (I just watched it again before typing this)) then he played Salt Creek. boy did he burn salt creek. He did this solo with crazy arpeggios. Ya... he was good...

[AlanN]

I remember that video, yes, Chris was good.

[kudzugypsy]

jethro burns said "never follow dancing animals or kid acts" and a true, true statement was that one learned over a lifetime of stage performance.

...young kids just have so much free time these days - (it aint like the *old* days of CHORES like cutting grass and stacking wood) you cant compete with a kid that comes home from school at 3:30 and picks for 5-6 hrs a night, has all the free time in the world, no worries. if kids spent the same amount of time on an instrument as they did on video games there would be a lot more thieles out there.

[sunburst]

...a kid that comes home from school at 3:30 and picks for 5-6 hrs a night, has all the free time in the world, no worries...
...CDs, DVDs, instructionl DVD, amazing "slowdowners", remote controls, repeat buttons, ...

[Dale Ludewig]

Scott- you're thinking about this the wrong way. Thile was probably bragging afterwards that he beat out Scott Tichenor!

[Peter Hackman]

I'm a guessin ... Mark Oconner
This has got to be the most difficult quiz ever!!!

[gnelson651]

...young kids just have so much free time these days - (it aint like the *old* days of CHORES like cutting grass and stacking wood) you cant compete with a kid that comes home from school at 3:30 and picks for 5-6 hrs a night, has all the free time in the world, no worries.

I don't know where your kid goes to school but my daughter has altleast 2-3 hours of homework every day. She hardly has time to practice her violin for 1/2hr to an hour daily. When playing sports, her time was even less. She also has to get up at 4:15 am every morning to catch her 5:30 am bus. Most of my daugther's friends rarely have 5-6 hours a night to practice an instrument. It seems that, contrary to your post, kids today are very much involved in sports and school to have that much free time for practicing music. I wished my daughter could practice several hours daily, but her busy schedule prevents that. I found that true for most other kids as well.

[Ken Sager]

Some kids are very much involved in sports and school. Some others are obviously very much involved in music. There are prodigies emerging all the time and it's obvious they put in the time to play the way they do.

It's all a matter of priorities. Some priorities are the kids' and some are the parents'. Is a busy schedule a kid's idea, or a parent's idea?

I can't answer that question.

Best,
Ken

[recklessmando]

It's not THAT difficult a quiz, being that Scott gave the answer in his second post, way up there ^^^ somewhere.

[JEStanek]

That Thile. He may have a buncha CDs to his name... but he doesn't own the Cafe. The place for all styles to hang-out, help and flame each other.

I really like Chris, he's the reason I choose the mandolin instead of guitar or banjo 5 years ago but I don't listen to his music every day and I've been back here a whole lot more.

Hey Scott, if you're gonna get beat by someone, I'ld rather come in second to Thile than Glauber or me! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

Cool story.
Jamie

[Ken Sager]

Is a busy schedule a kid's idea, or a parent's idea?

I can't answer that question.

Best,
Ken
I can't answer that question. We all knew it was Thile.

[mtnrose]

Sigh...reminds of a couple of years ago at Rocky Grass. A groupf of "little kids" were jamming at the Rono booth and were every bit as good as the adults. To top it off the mandolin player who was right handed was playing a lefty instrument upside down and never missed a beat or note. I beleive he also won the mandolin contest....geesh!

[Flowerpot]

Sounds vaguely like my experience at Wickenburg. I hadn't prepared much, but did OK on my tunes... Came in 4th, and who got 3rd? Sean Watkins. He was a teenager then. I didn't feel too bad about coming in behind him, cause as good as he is on the guitar he ain't no slouch on the mandolin. The guy who got 1st that year in mandolin was the guitar winner at Winfield the same year. That contest can draw them out of the woodwork.

[groveland]

I'm guessing there are probably 2 billion kids under 12 years old in the world, and I take solace in the fact that, on mandolin, I can play circles around most of them. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

[Greg H.]

Martin,

You got it! That's been the highlight of my musical career, to say I was beat by Mark O'Conner (not that it was that hard for him to do, the judges comment was that is was a tight contest between 2nd and 3rd http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif )

[billy parker]

I can appreciate the Wickenburg experience as well. #I competed 10 or so years ago and did fairly well although nervous as can be. #Finally got it over with and stuck in a 3-way tie for 2nd with Sean Watkins, and somebody else I can't remember (ugghhhh). #Ended up with 2nd and was happy to be done with it. #We all got Whupped on guitar and mando by Gary Cook from New Mexico. #Much more fun to be a judge or host band!!!!!

[Dfyngravity]

Hey Scott, how long had you been playing with Thile won the contest? I think by then Thile had put out his first solo CD Leading Off and was nominated for IBMA mandolin player of the year for the first time. Obviously Chris has more talent at mandolin than most normal mandolin players, although win he won this contest he had been playing mandolin for like 8 years already(I think he was 13 when he won). So it wasn't like he had only been playing just a short while and came up there and smoked everybody.

The great thing about starting to play an instrument when you are 5 years old is that by the time you finish high school you have 13 years of mandolin playing under your belt too. I just wish I started when I was 5 too, rather than 17.

[MML]

I'm glad I started playing mandolin when I was young too, I think I was 29 when I picked it up http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Hal Loflin]

I have a great Thile story...

I have been working as a stage hand volunteer at Merlefest for five years now and in 2004 I got to work the stage when Nickle Creek was there. There was another stage hand working with me that was telling about when Chris would come to Merlefest when he was around 11 or 12 years old. He said you never saw him without the mandolin across his shoulder.

THis one particular year, around the same time that Scott is talking about, Chris won the Merlefest Youth Mandolin contest and everyone was so blown away by his talent that they brought him up on stage at night during the festival with Doc Watson, Bela Fleckand Sam Bush and had him sit in with these guys.

As the story goes...During one of the songs Chris was burning it up and Sam Bush reached over and untuned one of Chris's strings just messing with him. According to this eyewitness, Chris retuned and continued to play without missing a lick.

Oh the stuff legends are made of!

[mandopete]

Yeah, yeah, yeah - but is it bluegrass?

I remember seeing Chris Thile with Nickel Creek when he was still playing guitar. I recall that the kids would stand in place, plucking a string while dad (Scott Thile) would manipulate the tuning gears.

It helps to come from a musical family.

[siren_20]

He may be a great mandolin picker and beat nearly everyone in terms of technical knowledge... but who do you think beat him at doing South Park impressions at the Symposium this last year? Hmm?
C'mon, you guys...