What make of Mandolin & who cares ?.

[chip]

"We don't because we can tell the difference. I don't play a $500 dollar mandolin because I don't want to. I care about the bluegrass audience/general public when I perform because I want to give them a good show and do my best. I don't care about them when it comes to deciding what mandolin to play."
Well said!

[JonZ]

I suppose that must be the premise. To me the question is just a pointless one designed solely just to make noise. It's just cocktail party chatter.

...as opposed to the important threads.

Okay, gotta get back to the Kafka Cafe now!

[ampig]

The main thing -A $5000 (or up) mandolin has is noticeably more voluminous than a $500 Pac-Rim instrument and can be heard over the other instruments in an acoustic setting

[catmandu2]

Okay, gotta get back to the Kafka Cafe now!

When Gregor is trying to get out of bed, he considers calling for help but then dismisses the idea. Why?

[Mike Snyder]

When Gregor is trying to get out of bed, he considers calling for help but then dismisses the idea. Why?

Ennui and a touch of nausea, as I recall.

[catmandu2]

[Bertram Henze]

When Gregor is trying to get out of bed, he considers calling for help but then dismisses the idea. Why?

Because his F5 turned into a taterbug overnight?

[Ivan Kelsall]

Ron - Begging your pardon,but my question was far from vague - it was basically ''do our audience care what instruments we play as long as they enjoy it ?''.It was based on an observation that Willie made during a recent gig with his band that got him thinking.
Refering back to something i posted in another thread re.the Gibson name.The brand name Gibson,for us mandolin players,has become synonymous with Bill Monroe.I feel that many Bluegrass players feel that to have 'the' mandolin for Bluegrass,it HAS TO BE a Gibson to be the real deal !.Being brutally honest,i feel the same way,but,my wallet limits me to what i can purchase, & a Gibson MM or any of the top flight Gibson models is way OTT for me. To address the point raised by Nic (NG53),would i replace my 2 instruments with others that have more pizzaz ?.I assume that Nic means instruments that are maybe held in higher regard. My answer is unequivically, yes i would !. BUT - the 2 i have,a Weber "Fern" & a Lebeda "Special" are good instruments in their own right.Webers are held in high regard for both their build quality & tone. My Lebeda is simply 'something else'. Since i've had it,it's developed into a superb mandolin & is as good as i will ever require.Neither of them are going anywhere.The main reason is my age.
At 67 years old & not playing with a band,what would my reason be for parting with 2 fine instruments for say a Gibson MM ?,even supposing i could afford one. It doesn't make any sense to me to do that. If i was 15 - 20 years younger & could get some 'playing value' out of one,then that's a different matter. Currently,if i could trade my 2 instruments in a part-ex.,i could easily afford the superb Ellis F5 that Trevor has in stock at TAMCO. Would i get satisfaction from the ownership of an Ellis & the quality of the instrument ? - you bettcha !!!. The other reason that hold me back,is that i'd have to part with my Lebeda to fund the part-ex.,& that's just not going to happen.The reason that i have 2 mandolins it that if i need work doing on one,i still have the other.It's as simple as that.I used to have an "A" style mandolin,but it had a problem & i ended up with 2 "F" styles,the 2nd being my 12 year old Lebeda which has proved to be a real stroke of good fortune.
Anyway,i've strayed too far from my own path here. As a final comment,i still feel that we buy our mandolins 'for us' - perfectly right !. Whether an audience can tell the difference whether we play a $500 or a $20,000 mandolin doesn't come into our 'buying thought process' very much (IMHO).If it sounds good to us,then it should sound good to an audience, regardless of price. I certainly wouldn't be ashamed to play the Kentucky KM-505 that i played several months ago anywhere, against any instrument either.I might loose,but i'd still sound pretty good ( i'd hope).
From David Gordon - "Do you honestly think that people like Carlo Aonzo or Avi Avital would sound as good (never mind be happy with) some cheap mandolin? Of course not."
David,you're pre-supposing that 'cheap' mandolins can't sound good.That's emphatically not true. As so many folk of here have pointed out,including a few highly regarded players,the 'cheap'
(comparatively so), Kentucky KM-900 mandolins sound excellent. Even the Kentucky KM-505 that i played a while back,a £450 UK instrument,sounded pretty good, & with say a CA bridge & some new strings,would have sounded even better.
We all have our opinions & mine is that basically,most audiences enjoy the music regardless of the 'price point' of the instruments being played. Ivan

[Mike Snyder]

I might, just might, have someone ask me what kind of mandolin I'm playing at the Saturday morning gig I'm preparing for. Might not, too. Folks at the farmer's market enjoy the music. It's home-made stuff, much like the jams and jellies and bananna-nut bread they're selling. It's as organic as the tomatoes and cucumbers. The musically inclined sometimes are impressed by the clarity and volume of the thing and are curious. I hope they're curious enough to toss some coin into my case.
I have to mention that Bill Monroe virtually never crosses my mind in re the mandolin. This summer a fellow played Lonesome Fiddle Blues at the tail end of a jam, everybody asleep in their campers, just the two guitars and me, and I gave it my best effort but Monroe has lost all charm for me. I had worked up Monroe's Hornpipe at one time and a hammered dulcimer player I know likes Jerusalem Ridge, but truth be known, I played through 49 tunes tonight (slow night at work) and it's all old-time, jigs, a couple of reels, a couple of French-Canadian, a hornpipe or two. I'm fairly certain he knew Red Haired Boy and Soldier's Joy and Liberty. He probably knew alot more of my type of tunes than I give him credit for. But just because I play a mandolin with the curly thing and it says Gibson on the headstock does not mean I'm a Monroeist. Got me sneered at at some bluegrass jams and festivals and I don't miss that at all. I have great respect and admiration for bluegrass mandolinists. That stuff is fast and technical and hard to play well and I'll still go and play when there's no old-time or ITM jam going on. I stick close to the melody and don't try anything very cute and I always call something old-timey when it's my turn and the hard-core BG snobs leave me alone, for the most part. There's a competitive aspect to the bluegrass style of music that I have seen become mean-spirited. "Here's my hot break. Top that, sucker". I've seen pickers treated shabbily if they're not up to jam "standards". That kind of eliteism and exclusion causes me to loose my serenity. I've been known to become peevish. Not often and not lately. I've got my serenity screwed down pretty tight, these days. I'm more aware of who I'm jamming with, too.
I cherish your posts, Ivan, and all you folks across the pond. I'd shoot my laptop before I would risk offending any one of you. You're the only ones up when I am and going to bed when my fellow Yanks are finishing breakfast. Your posts are thoughtful and informative. You seem fine fellows and I'd like to pick a tune or two with you, just maybe not Monroe.

[Jimdalf]

Because his F5 turned into a taterbug overnight?

Argh

[Bertram Henze]

I cherish your posts, Ivan, and all you folks across the pond. You're the only ones up when I am and going to bed when my fellow Yanks are finishing breakfast. Your posts are thoughtful and informative. You seem fine fellows and I'd like to pick a tune or two with you, just maybe not Monroe.

Just take a plane and join some session or jam, BUT: remember it only works until your jet lag is over

[Mandolin Mick]

Mike,

I'm a Bluegrasser and have also experienced the elitest attitude of other Bluegrassers at times. Like you, I prefer to stick to the melody, but there are plenty of us around who like to play for the music's sake and don't try to impress everybody.

However, I love Monroe and have found his picking on Master of Bluegrass to be some of the best solo mandolin material available. It's so busy, but melodic, that it sounds full without other musicians. I have to pretty much play solo these days because my hearing loss makes it pretty much impossible to play with other musicians.

[Randi Gormley]

... just a random thought regarding respecting the audience by playing an instrument with a recognizable brand name ... I think we absolutely buy our instruments for ourselves, but I think saying the audience notices the name on the headstock (except for the few who are mandolin nuts and actually know the difference) is wishful thinking. I wonder what percentage of the audience are there for the mandolin? Many who are there may know the difference in guitar brands, a few know banjos, but you can't tell a fiddle brand except by sound, and few people are close enough any way to see what's on the headstock of any instrument unless some jumbotron hones in on it and then most people are just looking at the fingers moving. I honor an audience by playing my best on whatever I have in my hands and it doesn't cross my mind if they know or care what name is on the headstock.

Once upon a time, I was out on a first date with a guy who picked me up in a little car that I thought was kind of cute. I like little cars, because I'm a little person. Having nothing else to talk about, we being strangers and all, I mentioned that I thought his car was nice and I liked the size. He gave me this weird look and said, "it's a Porsche." Maybe he thought driving the thing would impress me, but since I didn't know what it was, it kind of fell flat. I think of the audience like that -- I never assume they know enough about what I have to be impressed (or not impressed, considering my stable of instruments).

[Alex Orr]

Ron - Begging your pardon,but my question was far from vague - it was basically [I]''do our audience care what instruments we play as long as they enjoy it ?

But what about all the folks who never play for an audience and simply enjoy playing an exceptional mandolin that just happens to cost more than a few hundred bucks? The few times I ever have an audience in front of me, I'm generally wishing I was just picking with folks at a jam. A lot of us love playing nice instruments but would be happy to never have to be in front of an audience. Does the audience care about differences in quality that only a mandolinist will likely notice? Probably not. Does the mandolin player care? Yeah, probably...and that's really the more important issue for most of us who have no desire to play in front of an audience.

[Bertram Henze]

...I mentioned that I thought his car was nice and I liked the size. He gave me this weird look and said, "it's a Porsche." Maybe he thought driving the thing would impress me, but since I didn't know what it was, it kind of fell flat.

Deservedly so - here in the homeland of Porsche, it is not advisable to pick up a first date with such a machine unless you want to look like a show-off who cares more about his car than about his date.

[Nelson Peddycoart]

Maybe she thought she should say something before you got another one

Funny, and true! She keeps asking me "Is this the one that will make you happy?" She clearly does not understand.

[John Duncan]

I think it really depends on who your audience is. If your audience is the passerby at a farmer's market it might or might not matter to them. However, if your audience is at a bluegrass venue/bar/festival the chances are high that they are pickers themselves or bluegrass fans. In that case, it does matter to them. They will have an ear to some degree for good mandolin tone or tone in general. Same can be said of the band in general. That said, if you can't play well, that will be the first thing they pick up on. All just MHO.

[Texas]

Man makes the tool. The tool does not make man...

[Dagger Gordon]

I note that cars often get mentioned in these kind of threads, but I sometimes think that skis are a better comparison.

You could say that an old and relatively inexpensive pair of skis will get you down the hill in the same sort of way as a modest mandolin will play a tune, but good skiers know the difference and are prepared to pay for better equipment. Indeed, to ski at a certain standard you will require a good set of skis.

Is it not much the same with top mandolin players? To play Bach the way Avital or indeed Thile can requires a superior instrument, I would say. It's not just a question of whether an audience would know the difference, it's whether the artist is able to play at his/her best without having to deal with the limitations of the instrument.

[Jim Yates]

Markus brought up David Grisman's Tone Poems tour. I have the Tone Poems CD he did with Tony Rice, and I'll agree that there is some difference between the many mandolins and guitars used on the record, but I don't think that the cheaper instruments sound worse than the expensive ones. The cheapest instruments on the album are two catalogue instruments with cheaper woods and painted fronts used on Vintage Gintage Blues. I don't feel tempted to skip over this track, nor do I find myself "suffering through it". It's a great song, played by two super musicians and it sounds as good as anything else on the album. I don't know what the purpose of this album was, but what it showed me was that the player makes the music and the tool is secondary.

[8_stringer]

@ Dang.... Why hav'nt I met this 15k Blonde yet? She sounds amazing!

[JonZ]

I'm not trying to impress anyone with my car. I just happen to like the feel of rich Corinthian leather.

[Brutus1999]

About Gregor:

Yeah, but with all those appendages, he can play all the instruments by himself.........

[trevor]

I've been away for a few days and there's a lot to read here so I haven't read it all yet but my initial response is the usual and boring 'horses for courses'. I have a friend who is an excellent (professional) musician , Nick Pyn, who can pull great tone out of anything. He's a multi-instrumentalist and doesn't seem to have a great interest in checking out new instruments because it takes away from his playing time. Others are more specialist and seek a particular tone from their instrument. I had Andy Roberts in yesterday and he is of the latter opinion.

Its up to the individual and the best way for folks to come to their own conclusion is to get themselves somewhere where they can play all kinds at the same time in the same place, no suggestions of course.

[Paul Kotapish]

I would be interested in hearing from folks who have owned top-tier instruments--Dudenbostels, Gilchrists, Nuggets, Monteleones, original Loars, etc.--and determined that they really didn't get anything more out of their heavy investments than they did out of a much more affordable Kentucky, Eastman, Weber, or whatnot and decided to intentionally "downgrade."

Obviously loads of folks have to sell of expensive instruments to accomodate pressing financial obligations and end up with cheaper-but-serviceable instruments.

But I'm not aware of many folks who make the decision based on purely aethetic/pragmatic (tone, volume, playability, craftsmanship) reasons.

The more common argument seems to be "I've played a bunch of Gils and Dudes and even a Loar or two and none of them are really and better than my _________, and the nobody else can tell the difference, anyway."

Just curious.