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Rick Schmidlin
Apr-05-2008, 5:10pm
I met Francesca in Venice in 96 and we have been togeather ever since. She is from Bologna and loves the sound of the mandolin. Last week she had a crazy work load and today decided to veg on the couch this afternoon saying she had a headache, she requested I play my mandolin because that would be the cure and then she #gently went to sleep with a smile,she is still sleeping. One nice nice thing about living with a Italian is they love and relate to the sound of the mandolin. Of course I also relate to the orignal Italian dishs I am served. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

Chris Biorkman
Apr-05-2008, 5:28pm
Sometimes my wife puts her hands over her ears when I play.

Jim Garber
Apr-05-2008, 6:27pm
Sometimes my wife puts her hands over my ears when I play. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

You know, of course, that there are Italians who can't stand the sound of the mandolin?

Rick Schmidlin
Apr-05-2008, 9:37pm
Sometimes my wife puts her hands over my ears when I play. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

You know, of course, that there are Italians who can't stand the sound of the mandolin?
Not many, as I have many friends in Italy and they always request I bring my mandolin with me. My Italian friends in North America love it also. In Germany they think it sounds strange.

TeleMark
Apr-06-2008, 9:20am
Sometimes my wife puts her hands over my ears when I play. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

You know, of course, that there are Italians who can't stand the sound of the mandolin?
Not many, as I have many friends in Italy and they always request I bring my mandolin with me. My Italian friends in North America love it also. In Germany they think it sounds strange.
That's because it doesn't sound like a tuba...
Seriously. I've spent a little time in Germany. In the hotel I was staying in, at one time there were TWO of my 12 channels showing "Ooom-pah-pah" band music.

Dan Eaton
Apr-06-2008, 9:56am
"In Germany they think it sounds strange."

Caterina Lichtenberg might disagree.

Dan

Jim Garber
Apr-06-2008, 10:42am
It is funny, tho, how impressions develop. When I first got involved in Italian music I spent literally hours surfing Italian sites in search of the Italian folk or popular music from, earlier days, ballo liscio and the like. I got the feeling that mainstream Italian tastte runs, like that of the majority of Americans, to mid-range contemporary pop and that the mandolin was relegated to Venetian tourists in gondolas. Most hip Italians would cringe.

Since then , of course, I have discovered and "met" online many Italians who, like Americans in a parallel universe, have rediscovered their roots -- folk, blues and the like.

OTOH, I found that in Germany there is a pretty strong interest in classical mandolin: Caterina Lichtenberg, Gertrud Weyhofen, and others. I recently met Annika Luckebergfeld, a young classical player from Germany. Certainly these are not mainstream but itn is probably a stronger movement than classical players in the US. It is hard to make a generalization about any place -- esp that German interest is merely for oompah music. I would highly doubt that that is the case.

Celtic Saguaro
Apr-06-2008, 11:02am
Back in 1970 when I visited Germany the 'elevator music' in the department stores was usually military-style bands playing marches. Oompah might have been good for a change. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

Bertram Henze
Apr-06-2008, 11:45am
Just to chip in some to-date facts about German elevator music: no marches, no Oompah, just mainstream pop music.
Oompah on TV can be heard a lot at times of carnival and Oktoberfest, i.e. whenever the Germans take a time out from civilization.

But mandolins are not widely known ("what's that?"). Somehow this fails to make me sad.

Now back to blessed Italy...

Bertram

Michael Wolf
Apr-06-2008, 1:00pm
There must be a parallel Germany, that I haven't discovered yet. But I don't have a TV, maybe that's the reason. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Rick Schmidlin
Apr-06-2008, 1:08pm
Some of my best friends are in Germany but they never understand my music unless I play classical. One day outside a cottage I was staying in by a lake in Potsdam a woman came up and liked my mandolin. She said she like the music of Gilberto Gil, which I also love. When I played a bit Beethovens 5th she said "oh, you also play German music." I tried this again with other friends in different regions and they also said the same which I play Beethoven. When I go there summer I will prepair some Bach.

Elliot Luber
Apr-06-2008, 2:35pm
My wife's Italian and she hates the sound of the mandolin. Go figure.

Rick Schmidlin
Apr-06-2008, 2:42pm
My wife's Italian and she hates the sound of the mandolin. Go figure.
Italian or Italian American?

Bertram Henze
Apr-07-2008, 7:37am
There must be a parallel Germany, that I haven't discovered yet. But I don't have a TV, maybe that's the reason. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
Sure that's the reason. TV is a parallel world - crammed-together impressions you'd not see elsewhere. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

Bertram

keith_rowan
Apr-07-2008, 7:49am
my wife only "dislikes" the mandolin... when i'm playing it
http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif

Snakebeard Jackson
Apr-07-2008, 10:41am
In holland there was a big selling movie about a gangster who carried his gun in a mandolin case.