Hops
Jan-10-2011, 1:08am
So I've been teaching myself for the past few months, I haven't progressed very far (partly because the book I got is all in standard without tabs and I haven't learned to read it) but I've managed to pick out a few tunes (and I've got a new beginners book that was recommended by this forum on the way from Amazon). I got very swamped over the last school term (I'm an undergrad student) and really wasn't practising too much.
Anyway, over the last few days I've been really getting back into it and have been reforming my calluses and watching instructional videos. I finally took a close look around the forum and realized that my mandolin was not set up when I bought it. I knew that it had problems but I expected that because it's just a cheap made in china mando but I never realized the extent of its problems. The strings all buzz (which I'm not too concerned about, I bought this just to learn on), but worst of all it's very hard to push down the strings which has resulted in sliced up fingers and chords being a real challenge (holding down 2 strings with one finger is not even possible as far as I can tell).
So my question is where do I go from here? Where would I go to get my mando properly set up (I live in Calgary, AB if anyone knows of anybody local)? And how much would this cost? Depending on the cost I don't know if it would be worth it as the mandolin was pretty cheap (~$130) and doesn't seem to be of good quality (it's branded "smoky mountain instrument company", the only google result for this is someone on this forum asking if they've heard of them). I want to buy a new mandolin eventually (I'm going to be looking out for good deals on used mandos on here) but I don't really have any excess income to spend at the moment (Poor University student).
This seems like an awesome community, hope you guys can help :mandosmiley:.
Anyway, over the last few days I've been really getting back into it and have been reforming my calluses and watching instructional videos. I finally took a close look around the forum and realized that my mandolin was not set up when I bought it. I knew that it had problems but I expected that because it's just a cheap made in china mando but I never realized the extent of its problems. The strings all buzz (which I'm not too concerned about, I bought this just to learn on), but worst of all it's very hard to push down the strings which has resulted in sliced up fingers and chords being a real challenge (holding down 2 strings with one finger is not even possible as far as I can tell).
So my question is where do I go from here? Where would I go to get my mando properly set up (I live in Calgary, AB if anyone knows of anybody local)? And how much would this cost? Depending on the cost I don't know if it would be worth it as the mandolin was pretty cheap (~$130) and doesn't seem to be of good quality (it's branded "smoky mountain instrument company", the only google result for this is someone on this forum asking if they've heard of them). I want to buy a new mandolin eventually (I'm going to be looking out for good deals on used mandos on here) but I don't really have any excess income to spend at the moment (Poor University student).
This seems like an awesome community, hope you guys can help :mandosmiley:.