New Member Introduction

[Tracey]

I've been lurking around the Cafe for a while and finally decided to join the forums.

I started playing mano at the first of the year. I've never played a string instrument before. I played clarinet high school, but now I'm 51 and having to re-learn how to read music.

My occupation requires weekly travel, the mando is perfect for travel, and I get to practice in the evenings in the hotel.

I've started working through the Hal Leonard Method book, Learned the G major scale from Chris Thile's CD and working on A major. I've also learned the old Beatles tune I Will.

I started playing on a cheap Johnson mando but was haveing trouble. I took it to a luither who diagnosed that practically none of the frets were the same height. He reworked the fret board and lowered the action. The difference was like night and day.

Oh well, you get what you pay for. And it served to get me started. Now I've been bitten by the mando bug.

I read a lot on the forums about different instruments and decided to save up for an Eastman MD505. Then the guys over at the Mandolin Store put a blond MD905 on sale that I couldn't pass up. It should arrive later this week. Woo Hoo

Now my oldest son wants to try to learn so he will inherit the Johnson. He's never played an instrument. It will be interesting to see if the mando bug bites him...

[JeffD]

Welcome to our obsession. As you know from lurking, there are a whole lot of very knowledgable folks here, and everyone is very helpful. Sometimes there are equal and opposite experts, but thats all part of the fun.

Hope to see you around. Don't be a stranger.

[swinginmandolins]

Welcome to the Cafe, and glad you joined in the fun!

[JEStanek]

Welcome to the Café. Let us help you out or shoot the mandolin breeze with you. Congrats on the new instruments.

Jamie

[mfalkner]

Welcome Tracey. Check the forum for gatherings and music events in the areas where you are traveling, you'll meet some great people and maybe learn a lick or two.

[Tracey]

Thanks it's nice to have a place to go to ask questions. Currently I'm in Springfield IL till May.

[Lee Callicutt]

Welcome, and congratulations!

[Capt. E]

Welcome to the cafe, a wonderful journey ahead of you. You have already learned the great lesson of the difference a good setup can give you. Helps so much in learning to play.
Find some people to play with and perhaps get a teacher if you can. I started late as well and haven't regretted one moment.

[Elliot Luber]

Please post photos when you get your new mandolin. Sounds like a nice one from the discussion.

[David Rambo]

Hi and welcome to the beginning of a great adventure. Let us know how you like the new Eastman. I bought an 805D just before Christmas, and I love it. Yours should be even better! Keep us posted on what happens as your son starts his adventure, also.

Dave

[jim_n_virginia]

Yeah welome and don't forget the pictures when you get the mandolin!

[woodwizard]

Welcome to our mandolin world. I can't talk to anyone at work about mandolins etc., (they don't have a clue), but you sure can here. And congrats on your new mando. Sounds like a nice one.

[Mark Richardson]

Welcome Tracey. I did not start playing mandolin until I was in my early fifties either. Wish I would have started some forty years earlier. I still enjoy playing, even though I may never mature beyond the "accomplished beginner" level. I am a bit of a home body, so I have a friend/mentor stop by the house a couple of times a month. He keeps me going and always has some new points and tips to mention. Mandolins do car travel very well, as you have discovered. I take mine on every vacation my wife and I go on. It gives me something to do as she is getting ready in the mornings. Many people on this forum fly with theirs. That is something I have yet to try. When my family stops going to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in June, I will try to make it out to the Mandolin Symposium. I most definitely will have to fly with the mando then.

[Silent Crow]

Welcome. I am new here too.
I have played guitar for a few years and was wanting to give mandolin a try so I traded a old cheapo guitar I had lying around last Saturday for a Savannah mandolin. As of right now I am obssessed with mandolin, I am really enjoying learning and playing, I have learn't all of the basic open major chords and a few chop chords, and am working on learning a simple version of "Wayfaring Stranger". In short I think I may have found my second instrument.

[Mark Richardson]

Silent Crow
My younger daughter and I have been working on "Wayfaring Stranger". The version on Peter Rowan's Lead Singing and Rhythm Guitar DVD. I have only a rudimentary understanding of standard notation, but was able to move things from guitar tab and standard notation in the little songbook to play the tune on my mandolin. We're not real good, but we have fun.

[rap4th]

Tracey,
Congrats and welcome!! I am going to be ordering my first mandolin this weekend and I too have never played a string instrument. Did you start with medium strings on your mando or did you start on light ones?

Rob

[Capt. E]

It no longer surprises me that many people take up mandolin as their first string instrument. While I fooled with guitar a bit over the years, I never became serious about a stringed instrument until my first mandolin (a Mid-Missouri I found in a pawn shop for $300...lucky me!). Personally, I found the mandolin very much easier to play and understand than the guitar, besides, I love the sound of it.

I also play a Cajun style accordion and harmonicas.

[pickloser]

Hi Tracey - Great choice with that 905. I think you're going to love it. The Cafe is a wonderful resource.

[Tracey]

I didn't know enough when I bought the Johnson to know the difference. I just played what was on it. Fingers were sore for a while but are starting to toughen up

[Tracey]

Yea the 905 should be there by the time I get home on Thursday. I was a little apprehensive spending that much on an instrument without haveing the opportunity to hold or hear it. I'm hoping for the best, mostly based on the reviewes I've read here on the cafe. Where I live in Oklahoma and even traveling on my job, there just aren't any music stores that stock more than a token few mandolins. I would have liked to play a radiused fingerboard before ordering, but couldn't find one. I'm hopeful haveing a better quality instrument will make my learning a little easier. If that makes sense.

[D C Blood]

Welcome to the Cafe, Tracey. Much easier to learn and progress on a higher quality instrument (mandolin)...the quality of mandolins available to the beginner today is so much higher than when I started (1962)

"I would have liked to play a radiused fingerboard before ordering, but couldn't find one. I'm hopeful haveing a better quality instrument will make my learning a little easier"

Many of us who have switched to a radiused fingerboard would find it hard to go back to flat...

[mandroid]

May you never tire from repeatedly explaining ...'' no it's not a little Guitar " :grin:

[George R. Lane]

Tracey, Welcome and remember to hold on tight, because it can be a wide ride sometimes.

[B. T. Walker]

Welcome to the cafe, Tracey. It's Thursday afternoon, you've had time to get home from work if you drive like a bat out of the infernal region, and did your 905 get there? Let us know.