Sitting with a musical friend after school one day way back there, and he handed me a bowlback mandolin. He said, "put your hands like this and this, and here is how your fingers go" and I was in absolute awe.
He was a lower brass player in the high school band, I was woodwinds myself. But he was also taking violin lessons and could play some mandolin.
So I went home full of mandolin dreams and the only thing I had to work with was an old four string banjo
Like when a brown trout takes the artificial fly you tied this morning.
Like when you haul up the sail in a breeze and suddenly your boat wakes up and goes to work.
Like when a stranger returns your smile, in a country not your own.
Like when you play Wild Rose of the Mountain at your own jam in your own kitchen, and someone keeps the tune going when you thought you might stop.
This stuff is worse than opium.
In many important ways you could accurately say I am not a musician. I play music, but I do not make music.
I put in significant time behind my mandolin, my fiddle, and even my tenor banjo. I play lots of different kinds of music, from old timey and bluegrass to fiddle tunes and contra dance music, tunes from Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, to tango and classical. Some of it I do real well, some of it I do passably well, and some of it I really struggle with.
But here
I have been thinking about the cost of a mandolin.
Folks go on and on about why an F style costs more than an A style, or why a vintage this costs more than a vintage that. And there are numerous discussion about getting the best mandolin you can for under $300.00.
I understand, right down to my bones I understand, having serious concerns about money. And I have been through my share of scratchy times. And this is not about how to manage that, or how to get more for
In a recent thread a member posted a complete personal 6 point criteria for the purchase of a new mandolin. I started to comment, and found my comments were more distracting than helpful, and that they really contributed nothing to the original poster's questions. But I had to write something about this, and that is what a blog is for.
The party line on how to go about buying something new, or any decision really, is to:
1 list your criteria
2 divide
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