A spin off of the, "start your mandolin journey again thread"...

[B381]

So I was reading and enjoying all of the responses on that thread and I found I could relate to some as well.

Here's the question I pose:

Why? Why do you play?

There's a reason behind everything we do and what leads to our enjoyment of that particular hobby. I want to hear what motivates you.

When I was 18 years old I joined the fire department. I stayed in the fire department until I was 35 eventually working up to paid for a municipality. I took a hiatus for a few years as I started to burn out and got my real estate license which I loved working in. Well, along came the big economy bust and with it my 5 year real estate career. Today I am back in public service still running lights on top just a different uniform and have been in that a few years. I am now 46 and it's amazing how what I learned way back in school is still recalled when learning mandolin (theory, notes, expression styles, etc).

During my younger days I was a PADI certified dive master and worked, as a hobby for a local dive shop. I got heavily into RC cars. I owned and still own Harleys. I got into road cycling. Etc,etc,etc. I have had many varied interests as you can see.

In school I played in marching band, trumpet, for 6 years which gave me a base for theory and reading music notes. I put it down after graduating due to other interests, namely of the female persuasion, and the years clicked by. Marriage happened, kids happened, bills happened and I soon learned there was no strapping a car seat to a Harley no matter what my younger self had thought years before. One day on a whim I suggested guitar to my 10 year old son and before you know it we were in a local small community class that was pretty useless. My son gave up guitar for XBox and I continued trying to teach myself. I always loved bluegrass music and was always curious about mandolin. One day I jumped on a $39 internet deal and bought a Rogue. I tinkered with it and the set up book offered on here and got it sounding pretty decent. The mandolin was amazing, it just kinda clicked. Where I never did very good on the six strings and couldn't play a melody line to save my life, I could pick up my mandolin, sight read tab and stroll right through pretty good. Funny thing, chords came fairly easy one the guitar and melody hard but on the mandolin its completely opposite.

That fueled my desire and before you know it I bought a Kentucky km150. Wow, what a difference! Shortly thereafter MAS kicked in, a deal on a Kentucky km250 presented itself and, long story short, I now own two mandolins. Passing the rogue to someone who wanted to learn.

I want to be good but I know it's a process and I just remind myself I play for my enjoyment and that makes me happy. After a hard day, sitting down and making a sound, unsure if most would call it joyful, makes me forget the hectic world and brings me a lot of satisfaction. This is something I can do at a moment's notice or at soccer practice with my kids unlike all the other hobbies that required traveling to do, gathering a group of folks,etc which makes it ideal with a wife and kids.

I play for me....that my why....what's yours.

[Ivan Kelsall]

My answer's pretty short - I love Bluegrass music & want to play it myself,first banjo & now mandolin,
Ivan

[Mike Snyder]

One of my favorite topics. Why, indeed. Brisco Darling said; “Got time to breathe, you got time for music.” Or something along that line. Music has been the constant in my life forever. My mother would never stop vocalizing and I am sure that those tunes were the seed of making music before I was born. Oddly the instruments I was handed in school never grew into my hands. Singing harmony in church and school, voice training, then solo performance were the thing until I picked up a mandolin at age 19 or 20. And I piddled at it for the longest time, a very poor player I was. I stumbled into Irish trad some years ago after trying to play bluegrass with poor results. Then fiddle tunes became a passion and the playing improved by leaps and bounds. Funny thing, now bluegrass is fun. I don’t even try to play Bill or Dawg or Sam (maybe a little Sam). I play Mike. Make the melody recognizable and have fun improvising and have fun. I play because it is the short route to joy. Maybe I have no choice. I play because I breathe the same air as Briscoe Darling. I’ve had some carpal trauma over the years and it causes me to wonder what would happen if I could no longer play. I shudder at the thought and am sure that I would find a way to play something somehow. Unthinkable that this thing should end. To say that I am made of music sounds arrogant, but what is it that I AM made of? What does the reality of me consist of? Tunes is life, life is tunes.

[Phil Goodson]

Besides the 'fun' factor, I find the whole thing mentally stimulating (which I understand is good for an old man's brain).
Every time I learn a new song, or look thoughtfully at a chord chart (usually one that one of you guys have posted), I see some relationship on the fingerboard that I hadn't noticed before. (Oh, there's a 3 note over on that next string that I hadn't noticed.)

When I get through a whole tune without a major mistake, I get a really satisfying feeling. Although it's momentary, I can make the feeling recur by playing it again, or by learning a new one. Or by playing a tune or song with others. (Gotta love that limbic system)

So the short answer is "pleasurable feedback". And it's good for you!:)

[JeffD]

I started playing because back in the day everyone played guitar to get a social life. Older than me played Neil Young, younger than me played James Taylor, everyone played Simon & Garfunkel and Beatles.

It was the times when playing guitar and seeming to be emotionally unavailable were all the rage.

I wanted to be part of that, but I have always had a strong contrarian streak in me, so I chose mandolin.


After that I became addicted, and my life evolved around it, and now I would have a mandolin shaped hole in my life if I gave it up.

[JeffD]

I want to be good but I know it's a process

I think it is supremely important to love the process. We will spend most of our lives "getting good" and surprisingly little time "being good" at mandolin. Figuring stuff out, seeing connections, fixing bad habits, discovering whole new ways to play, seeing the fretboard in a whole new way, going from embryo to adolescent over and over and over again, that has to be the juice.

And if you can get into a mindset where you love practicing, and look forward to it, and you are not clock watching but your getting dinner late, or not getting to bed on time. Practicing tunes, sure, but practicing scales and etudes and arpeggios and right hand technique and all of it. If you can love practicing and as an activity, its a wonderful life.

Practice. It is what musicians do. With 90% of their musical lives. The good ones anyway.

Even when I achieve what I think is "good" I look around and see that "I ain't nothin" and have more to learn. Thank goodness.

So "wanting to be good" is fine, but IMO "wanting to be working at getting good" is the real thing. Because I can do that one.

[UsuallyPickin]

As Pholphool stated ... fun factor ... pleasurable feedback .... JeffD ... what's a social life? Seriously .... music and the playing of it is the love of my life. It is the only thing that hasn't budged from my interest and consciousness in the five plus decades I have been playing. Everything else has come and gone ..some to come again some not or not yet anyway. Yes guitar and the folk boom .. both J.T. and N.Y. and S&G and CS&N ...... Beatles and Beach Boys were part of my listening experience but I never really played their music. I moved to Kentucky in the 70's and got to playing Newgrass as a harmony singer rhythm guitarist. Here it is four decades later and I spend time each day with a mandolin, guitar, fiddle and occasionally a banjo. I spend time each year going to music camps to learn and to pick with friends. Joie de vivre ...... R/

[LadysSolo]

Why do I play music or why do I play mando? I play music because music has always been a part of my life - My grandma played piano, my uncle played bass, my mom played piano, and she encouraged me. I also play organ because I love it, harpsichord because it's fun and I love it, guitar because it was the 60s and everyone played guitar, recorder because I love chamber music, and mandolin because there was one hanging in the window of a pawn shop I drove past fairly often and kept meaning to go in and see how much, and maybe buy it. Well one week it was sold, and so I started looking on the internet to learn about them, found the café, bought a starter mando to see if I liked it, I did, got MAS, and the rest is history. I am also teaching myself Oboe and violin, so I am (I think) officially crazy.

[Mark Gunter]

Why? I love playing music, and I love practicing an instrument. Also, getting lost in either pursuit heals me.

[Al Trujillo]

Why?

Because I didn't see as a child that the world was a much bigger place than my mind could imagine. Like lots of kids, I resisted my parent's efforts to teach me or to be taught. With time and age comes a clarity of our past, and lamenting of things we should have done, but didn't. Just as I regret the way I treated some people, and decisions I made along the way that I can not correct....music is one place that I can self-direct myself to becoming a better person.

I learned by watching the angel that married me as she handled our children with love and grace.. and how they responded to her gentle touch. It was watching my kids grow, spiritually and acoustically that I learned a lot about myself.

As I neared 60, when I retired, I made a decision to fill the potholes of my life. The mandolin is more than music to me. It goes to knowing that we never stop growing, or learning, or saving ourselves from regret.

And I love playing it...and becoming lost in it.

[Pete Martin]

It is such fun to play with others.

[Randi Gormley]

I've had a thread of music running through my head for as long as I can recall -- and mandolin, or any musical instrument -- helps me get it out. When I was younger, it was flute (when I've got a tune or song in my head, my first response -- even after all these years of mandolin playing -- is still to dry finger an imaginary flute), in college it was recorder; as a young woman, mandolin and piano, now it's mostly mandolin. So there's that. I have Lass on the Strand running through my head right now, I may have to wander down and play it a few times to get it out of my attention. As to why I'm still playing -- well, yes, playing with other people is wonderful. Music has brought so much to my life -- people and experiences and skills -- I can't imagine what life would be like without music. OTOH, I'm generally a artsy-type, so if I'm not playing music, I'm drawing or writing or doing woodwork or handwork like sewing or tatting or embroidery or crocheting. My hands seem to need something in them or I get restless and the only other way to stop the wandering is reading -- which I do in and around all the other stuff. I guess music isn't really a choice, it's more like breathing.