Laird
May-19-2009, 10:47am
Can I assume that others among you play much, much better in your dreams? I mean your literal dreams? It's happened to me several times now.
I had a really vivid one this morning, after falling back asleep when I should have been getting up. Here's what happened, if you're interested.
I was back home in Oregon (where I was born and raised), awaiting my turn in a picking contest at some very funky bar. It was dark and crooked, with lots of unusual woodwork--tree limbs for rafters, etc.--and a crowd that looked like they'd wandered in straight from the Oregon Country Fair (one of the great countercultural festivals): long hair, maybe some patchouli, not much shaving going on with either of the genders. My kind of place!
Well, at some point in the evening, my mandolin disappeared. I didn't panic--it was a dream, after all--but I spent most the night looking for it. At one point I ended up in an upper room where there were plenty of mandos hanging on the wall, but they belonged to the two guys who were hanging out up there (Jeremy and Marty from the Sugar Beets.) Someone tried to sell me a ukelele, but I said no thanks.
I ended up borrowing a mando (and arranging for later lessons) from Jeremy, along with the only stiff pick from a box of flimsy plastic ones. It was metal, with odd designs cut out of it, creating lots of potential to get stuck on a string. Still, it was better than a flimsy pick.
When I got back to the stage, things were winding down and I had to talk them into even letting me play. Then, before I could step up to the mic, some raggedy stranger got up in front of me and started telling his own long and raggedy life story into the mic. It involved running from the cops somewhere down south. Louisiana? Anyhow, I started playing some back-up music for his story--actually, it was C.C. Rider, a song I've never bothered to learn. The metal pick gave the mando a steely sound, so I played it slow, but with slides and flourishes and double-stops that just came naturally. It sounded really good, better than anything I've ever played before, and I didn't even have to think about what I was playing.
After the stranger finished and jumped off the stage to general applause, and I stepped up to the mic to start my set, people started crowding around me on stage--most memorably an unknown Guatemalan fellow, squat and unshaven, who stepped right up next to me and put a flute to his lips, ready to join in once I started playing. No eye contact, nothing. Most of the people on the stage behind me seemed curious, more interested in just looking over my shoulder than in joining in. It was a crazy scene, but with complete confidence I set that metal pick against the G string and . . .
. . . woke up. :disbelief: Man, was I READY to play!
Anyone else have some memorable mandolin dreams? (Me, I've got to track down the TAB to C.C. Rider and see how I did that!)
I had a really vivid one this morning, after falling back asleep when I should have been getting up. Here's what happened, if you're interested.
I was back home in Oregon (where I was born and raised), awaiting my turn in a picking contest at some very funky bar. It was dark and crooked, with lots of unusual woodwork--tree limbs for rafters, etc.--and a crowd that looked like they'd wandered in straight from the Oregon Country Fair (one of the great countercultural festivals): long hair, maybe some patchouli, not much shaving going on with either of the genders. My kind of place!
Well, at some point in the evening, my mandolin disappeared. I didn't panic--it was a dream, after all--but I spent most the night looking for it. At one point I ended up in an upper room where there were plenty of mandos hanging on the wall, but they belonged to the two guys who were hanging out up there (Jeremy and Marty from the Sugar Beets.) Someone tried to sell me a ukelele, but I said no thanks.
I ended up borrowing a mando (and arranging for later lessons) from Jeremy, along with the only stiff pick from a box of flimsy plastic ones. It was metal, with odd designs cut out of it, creating lots of potential to get stuck on a string. Still, it was better than a flimsy pick.
When I got back to the stage, things were winding down and I had to talk them into even letting me play. Then, before I could step up to the mic, some raggedy stranger got up in front of me and started telling his own long and raggedy life story into the mic. It involved running from the cops somewhere down south. Louisiana? Anyhow, I started playing some back-up music for his story--actually, it was C.C. Rider, a song I've never bothered to learn. The metal pick gave the mando a steely sound, so I played it slow, but with slides and flourishes and double-stops that just came naturally. It sounded really good, better than anything I've ever played before, and I didn't even have to think about what I was playing.
After the stranger finished and jumped off the stage to general applause, and I stepped up to the mic to start my set, people started crowding around me on stage--most memorably an unknown Guatemalan fellow, squat and unshaven, who stepped right up next to me and put a flute to his lips, ready to join in once I started playing. No eye contact, nothing. Most of the people on the stage behind me seemed curious, more interested in just looking over my shoulder than in joining in. It was a crazy scene, but with complete confidence I set that metal pick against the G string and . . .
. . . woke up. :disbelief: Man, was I READY to play!
Anyone else have some memorable mandolin dreams? (Me, I've got to track down the TAB to C.C. Rider and see how I did that!)