New year's resolutions

[Laura Leder]

Cool Mandolin Company (http://www.coolmandolin.com)
Hello to everyone and Happy New Year's!
I have several New Year's resolutions (as usual!)
but here are a few:

(1) Take more time to "live in the moment" and enjoy
the time I spend with my family
(2) Keep plugging away at raising mandolin scholarship
funds through Cool Mandolin Company
(3) Practice, practice, practice!
(4) Spend half of my practice time working on my
weaknesses

What are your resolutions?
All the best,
Laura http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[Keith Erickson]

Hello & good morning to All:

...& Happy New Year to Everyone!!!!

My yearly New Years Resolution is to not make any New Years Resolutions http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif What can I say? Every year for the last 11 years I've made this resolution, I've kept it.

I've got a 100% percent success rate http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

[JEStanek]

I'm kinda with Keith... I've made the same resolutions since 1998.

1) Walk like a member of the Fat Albert gang at least once a day.
2) Have more people submit to my will.

I've been pretty successful on at least half of them.

Jamie

[John Flynn]

I won't go into my personal resolutions. They are just too trite! Music-wise, however:

1) Get a regular weekend stringband going again, to jam and do some "light" playing out. Anyone in the St. Louis area interested?

2) Get more systematic and organized about practicing. I will have goals, a plan to meet them, set aside time consistently in my schedule and be working on that plan most of the time I have a mando in hand.

3) Play the harmonica more. I've played it for years and I'm reasonably good at it, but it's been an instrument I have never taken seriously or really worked at. I'd like to see what I could accomplish if I got serious about it.

[swiba]

I AM!!!! going to learn the BLUEGRASS STOMP!!!!!http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[halfamind]

Happy New Year!

my resolutions...

To play in my new backyard every day the weather allows... got started already...

http://www.levitarr.com/imagedump/mandobeach.jpg

...and to quit smoking

...and to "play" less, and to "practice" more

...this could take all day... http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[epicentre]

No big resolutions; they're too easy to break. Just to lose another 40 lbs (that'll be 80) in the next year, and to learn to play all the tunes I can play with music, without music.

Sounds like enough to keep busy.

Cotton Patch Rag comes to mind. OUCH!

http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/coffee.gif

[Jim MacDaniel]

I already broke mine: spend less time on the internet. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

[Kool Keith]

I already broke mine: spend less time on the internet. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif

Sweet Jesus, ain't that the truth.

[Slim Pickins]

I always give up my New Years Resolutions #for Lent. #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif



Make a Joyful Noise

[mandocrucian]

Get my chops on (boehm) flute together
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>(Blues/Tull/Traffic etc. Things are starting to click with it & I already have the standing on one foot thing down from a decade+ of karate training! all the breathing exercises didn't hurt either)</span>

Spend a lot more time with the viola
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>(for the Swarbrick-Fairport/Sugarcane Harris/Nordic stuff)</span>

Clean out some space in the basement so I can set up my (conventional) drum kit and do some bangin'. (Get primal ala Waits)

Order a couple of "pinpoint capos" (one string capos) from Sweden and have them installed on the cittern my wife gave. Get comfortable with the long fat neck and playing/functioning in the lower registers.

Spend 20-30 mins a day playing my English concertina
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>(I dug it out of the closet for the first time in maybe five years, but hadn't really messed with it much since the mid 70's. Still remember a lot of the tunes I used to play on it, but now play it better than I ever did before, with no practice. The ear/finger connections and brain rewiring has cybernetically extended into this instrument as well)</span>

Continue playing mando (and tenor banjo) left-handed and get it up a level where I can offer a to play (LH) at a reduced sideman rate.
<span style='font-size:8pt;line-height:100%'>(My wife's son - first class musician - started removing strings off his bass according to how much he was getting underpaid on a gig. #He did some jobs with only two strings and said it didn't hurt his playing a bit and got such audience reaction that it p.o.ed the band frontman even more!)</span>

Build (or have one made for me) just the solid-body (for a doubleneck) to which I'd strip/transfer the necks/hardware from my Mandobird-8 and my electric 5-string mandola #(though I wonder if I'd be better off with a regular guitar neck instead).

Exorcise that unpublished instructional material on the computer and put out the first 4 or 5 (of a series) Mandocrucian method books/cds/dvds.

Work out & train more. Maybe factor in archery as well.

Niles H

[Joe Dodson]

Jam More.

And, not for nothing, so far it's going pretty well. It's January 9, and I've managed to get in three picking sessions with frends, with another scheduled for this weekend and a Steve Kaufman guitar workshop next weekend.

Maybe that'll help make up for my abject failure in the "lose weight" arena. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif

[sgarrity]

I'm making mine right now.......Not to comment on anymore Eastman or Gibson threads! And to try and rely less on tab and more on my tin ear for learning new tunes.

Shaun

[f5loar]

You'll spend a year learning the "Stomp". Ask F5Joe!
Mine is simple keep doing what I did last year and less of it.

[JimRichter]

1) #Having been diagnosed as prediabetic, lose another 20 lbs and go back to my eating/healthy habits of 10 years ago (no red meat, increase whole grains, etc.)

2) #Get my carpal tunnel managed to where my hands feel healthy most of the time.

3) # Get 1st in banjo at the Indiana state fiddle contest. #Should have had 1st last year (placed 3rd #last year and 4th the year before) but my right hand peetered out. #As long as my right hand is strong I can do it.

4) #Place 2nd in mandolin at the same contest. #Placed 3rd last year. #Can't blame my lower placing on anything other than the other guys were much better. #

5) Be a better husband and father

6) #Get my flock of chickens going. #I've been wanting chickens for a long time (grew up with them around me) and after building a coop last summer, I'm ready to start some brooding in a couple months.

Short little list in no particular order.

Jim

[DryBones]

I always give up my New Years Resolutions #for Lent. #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif



Make a Joyful Noise
I gave up religion for Lent! #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif # http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

Actually would like to take some lessons in 2007 and move up a bit from playing TAB melodies around the house. Oh yeah, and buy more Mandos (MAS has no cure) Should get on a custom waiting list.

[DryBones]

1) #Having been diagnosed as prediabetic, lose another 20 lbs and go back to my eating/healthy habits of 10 years ago (no red meat, increase whole grains, etc.)

2) #Get my carpal tunnel managed to where my hands feel healthy most of the time.

3) # Get 1st in banjo at the Indiana state fiddle contest. #Should have had 1st last year (placed 3rd #last year and 4th the year before) but my right hand peetered out. #As long as my right hand is strong I can do it.

4) #Place 2nd in mandolin at the same contest. #Placed 3rd last year. #Can't blame my lower placing on anything other than the other guys were much better. #

5) Be a better husband and father

6) #Get my flock of chickens going. #I've been wanting chickens for a long time (grew up with them around me) and after building a coop last summer, I'm ready to start some brooding in a couple months.

Short little list in no particular order.

Jim
Jim,
I got the full blown Type 2 diagnosed just before Thanksgiving. I've changed the diet and got on the lightest doses of meds and have hit the treadmill. My numbers are looking good now and have lost about 10 pounds so far. Good luck with it, it never really goes away but it is an animal you can tame.