Monday Morning Mando-Levity: For Better or Worse...

[Billgrass]

142377

[JeffD]

The solution, I believe is to only date musicians (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/entry.php?793-Reasons-Why-it-is-Probably-Best-to-Date-a-Musician). :)

[kurth83]

That thread made me realize I don't have a penny whistle...

And thanks for the laughs :-)

[Jess L.]

The solution, I believe is to only date musicians (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/entry.php?793-Reasons-Why-it-is-Probably-Best-to-Date-a-Musician). :)

:) :)) :cool: Yes I see the points to that, including the humor , but... not trying to be troublesome or anything...

Okay the stuff below isn't directed at JeffD or anyone else here, :) I'm just kind of generally musing...

As to dating musicians... Problems can arise when 1/2 of the relationship decides to learn a new style, perhaps total immersion in retro-punk-rock, :disbelief: :grin: or if they were already playing that, :cool: then maybe a switch to radically-purist acoustic-only Irish trad typically where anything electric is unwelcome :crying: etc. Or maybe your partner decides to take up bagpipes! :cool: Y'know there are lots of different kinds of bagpipes, :grin: there's Uillean and Northumbrian and various smallpipes from all sorts of different countries around the world... they might even want to raise goats to make their own bagpipes... might take your partner many years :disbelief: to explore all the possibilities! :popcorn: Disclaimer: I like the sound of bagpipes, :mandosmiley: but if I ever took up playing pipes I'd prefer to simply buy the parts I needed, rather than raise them myself from livestock. I also like punk rock, some of it anyway. I also (used to) like acoustic-only but now, um... but I digress. So anyway...

They might do a 180 and want to start a heavy-metal band, will you still jam together? Was playing music together was the only thing you had in common?

It's too easy for people to mistake musical wow-factor with 'love', all they know is that they feel an emotional response but is it because of the *music* or the musician him/herself? If the music is removed from the equation, how much of that 'love' feeling remains? Lots of people can't tell the difference because they're not introspective and they haven't figured out what's going on in their own mind/heart. It can lead to problems.

It might matter, it might not, depending on other aspects of the relationship, but it's something to consider.

It's like movie stars who might feel a strong connection to another actor where they worked on the same movie together, it feels like a super strong emotional bond but *poof* as soon as the movie is done being filmed, they no longer have that common-ground :crying: and they might discover that they really didn't have anything in common after all (aside from that one movie). Quick marriage, quick divorce.

In my opinion, for what it's worth, if it's only a musical common-ground, that is *not* sufficient to provide a long-lasting foundation for a relationship.

Also, eventually, one partner will probably become a much better musician than the other one, and the better musician might feel hindered by 'having' to keep doing gigs/jams with the lesser musician just because they're a romantic couple. It could be worked through but it would take (a) recognizing the problem and (b) dealing with it in ways that didn't hurt anyone's feelings.

I guess it depends on what one wants. If you're okay with casual dating where you're not interested in becoming anything more long-lasting, uh I never saw the point of that but hey everyone's different, whatever floats yer boat I guess, :) so if a person were only interested in casual temporary relationships, then dating a musician would be non-problematic because if your musical interests change and you can't jam together anymore (he "went electric" or she all of a sudden only plays pre-Renaissance one-chord-drone dance music (cool stuff, by the way), so just replace them :disbelief: with someone more suitable who you *can* jam with and get those good musical vibes from. But why get romantically involved in the first place? It's like mixing business and pleasure, or dating someone in the workplace. Often a very bad idea.

However - IMPORTANT - on the flip side... if you're romantically involved with a *non*-musician, then when you go to a jam/gig and they go with you, you have to work harder at making your non-musician partner feel welcome so they don't feel left out of the proceedings. Because if they feel left out, they're gonna be unhappy and they can easily become jealous or resentful of your music itself, even if they don't say anything they can act out in passive-aggressive ways that might take you a while to figure out. So you want to make sure that your non-musician partner knows they are highly important in your life, you don't want them to feel (even if they know better on a 'thinking' level) that they play second-fiddle (ha! no pun intended) to your musical interests.

Okay, 'nough serious stuff, will lighten up :whistling: now...
</long-winded essay> :)

[Marcus CA]

At my son's wedding, his wife wrote into the vows that he would take her to Disneyland at least once a year. So, the vow in that cartoon seems perfectly reasonable to me. :mandosmiley:

[darrylicshon]

I'm glad my wife plays guitar and she even knows some mandolin chords, but she used to play banjo and wants to start again, so I've been looking around for one.

[JeffD]

</long-winded essay>

Loved the whole essay. No I don't think the two in the relationship should necessarily play the same type of music, or even enjoy the same type of music. More that only another musician would be intuitively sympathetic to the needs of a musician, and be able to forgive excess in advance.

[journeybear]

Okay, 'nough serious stuff,

So much for levity! :)) :mad: :grin:


... she used to play banjo and wants to start again, so I've been looking around for one.

You're a good man! Kind, considerate, forgiving. But maybe you should take your time on your search, make sure you find just the right instrument, even if it takes a couple of years, maybe more, just on the off chance she'll forget all about it ... :whistling:

Re: the OP - Assuming she says yes, does she have a sister who's single? ;)

[Bertram Henze]

The solution, I believe is to only date musicians

It worked out in my case (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B59MwrPYXV0).

[Steve VandeWater]

I'm glad my wife plays guitar and she even knows some mandolin chords, but she used to play banjo and wants to start again, so I've been looking around for one.

When you say "looking around for one", do you mean a banjo or a new wife? :))

[mandolindude04]

Don't that just have Mandolin picker written all over it?