Passing through milestones in your playing

**Gerry Hastie** · Jul-19-2012, 1:16am

Forgive me a little for blowing my own trumpet but I passed through a milsestone in my playing yesterday evening when I played David Grisman's version of O Sole Mio (from the Tone Poems album with Tony Rice) in a live setting. I was really nervous about some of the breaks in the tune and after initially not wanting to play the piece I was persuaded to and what do you know? It came off! Nearly 100%!

I felt 10 feet tall and my playing the rest of the night felt easy and comfortable. I almost couldn't believe it.

What are your stories of passing through whatever 'milestones' you have? For example being able to play a certain piece/get a technique right/play in a certain situation. What will your next milestone be? Mines is to play O Sole Mio live again!

**Ivan Kelsall** · Jul-19-2012, 2:50am

Well done Gerry !.The one tune that i 'really' aspired to play,other than the compulsary favourite of mine 'Rebecca',was John Reischman's tune "The Eighth of February". I never thought that i'd reach my goal,but,i worked on it & eventually got there.Playing it 'live',would be another thing altogether.I've been playing banjo for so long that my 'banjo nerves' dried up & fell off years back,but mandolin is a whole new ballgame - i'd give it a go though,
Ivan

**sarai** · Jul-19-2012, 8:09am

Gerry Hastie - that's fantastic and a great feeling to have. I'll have to do some digging to hear these songs you guys are talking about. Wish I had my earbuds with me at work today ... poo.

Anyway I just learned the positions for 7th chords on the mando. I'm also a guitar player so the chord progressions are familiar to me - meaning I hear where they should be in songs, and yearn to play them. I was skipping them in the beginning of my learning, but now I know the position well and I have been applying them in my chopping so that makes me happy.

**AnneFlies** · Jul-19-2012, 9:53am

Thanks for sharing your milestone, Gerry - great topic!

My milestone came when I finally played a jig all the way through in a session (or seisiun, if you prefer). Granted, it was a "slow" session, but I hadn't been able to keep up with the group up until then.

**David Lewis** · Jul-19-2012, 10:20am

Finally nailing the pentatonic scale - only recently, and only through constant practice of the scale. But, yep, I felt 10 feet tall, and can't wait to jam again.

**JeffD** · Jul-19-2012, 1:02pm

Two wierd milestones.

The first when someone asked me for help - until then I was always the one who asked for help, all of a sudden I realized I was no longer struggling with some of the things others were having trouble with, and I could provide some guidence. Woo hoo!

And then, really wierd, was the first time I was asked to slow down. Again, woo hoo!

**Marty Henrickson** · Jul-19-2012, 1:59pm

Great job, Gerry, and an interesting thread.

I had a milestone several weeks ago. It was the first time I had played an instrumental solo on mandolin (well, actually it was the mandola) in public. I played two hymns, "Heavenly Sunlight", and "Brethren We Have Met To Worship".

**Timmando** · Jul-19-2012, 3:39pm

Still waiting for my first milestone. I seem to be stuck in transition between my guitar picking method where I have developed all the muscles and move at the elbow, and the proper mando way of using my wrist. My wrist is stiff as a board and I need to climb that mountain of developing wrist looseness and wrist muscle where I can get some control and volume using my wrist. It seems that the songs I have learned while rotating at the elbow, fall apart to nothing when I try to play them by rotating at the wrist.

**Gerry Hastie** · Jul-19-2012, 3:56pm

Hi Timmando, what will you notice when you know you've cleared that milestone? You have clearly got expertise in developing technique as you've done with guitar picking? How did you do that and what can you apply from knowledge about technique development to, as you say, play from the wrist?

**billhay4** · Jul-19-2012, 4:35pm

1) Quitting an abusive and negative teacher.
2) Quitting an incompetent teacher.
3) Joining a slow jam.
4) Developing a small group of people to play regularly with.
Many more to come.
Bill

**Willie** · Jul-19-2012, 8:04pm

My milestone came a few years ago when my band was doing a show at a campground and one of the listeners came up to us and said we sounded better than the band that had played that same day at another place close by and I asked who the band was and he said "The Seldom Scene"....I found later that this compliment came from a very well thought of mandolin player in this area...NO NAMES....

My hat hasn`t fit my head since that day.....We owe it all to a great Bose L1 sound system.....

Willie