I wrote this song! And My Mandola and I did it at the talent show

[Timmy Vilgiate]

So, no one at my school actually knows what a mandola is but me. I get stopped and asked by people if they can see my ukulele, cello, guitar, violin, bass (don't even know...) or sitar, but I don't think anyone has ever just KNOWN that I was playing a mandola. I converted this with viola strings from an Ovation Mandolin. It rattled when I played it with double courses, so I took off half the strings. I have a use for all the little dangling wires on the instrument, they mute the upper strings so I can make a snare effect; I use that when I'm either playing dance music, or in a setting where I want to be very, very, very subtle. My band Cliff Letters plays this song with more people, and I find I kind of enjoy that sort of thing a littttllllle more. But still. Here it is: When You Talk by Me, my mandola, and I.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVYpmmaivo8&feature=plcp&context=C3b150a3UDOEgsToPDskIKVjeRscHt9GEbRsQY8VcL

[Bernie Daniel]

Good job! Now the rest of the school knows what a mandola is! You probably taught them more then their teachers did that day! :) Did you win?

[bmac]

Very creative!!!

[F-2 Dave]

Great job. Solo gigs are tough. Loved your interaction with the crowd, actually had them singing (humming) along. Cool.

[Phil Goodson]

Good job! Nice sound.

I'm still not sure whether it's a mandola or a low tuned mandolin with 4 big strings.
Super short scaled mandola?

Either way, cool.:cool::)

[Timmy Vilgiate]

They do now! Or they have a rough idea of what one sounds like! Thanks guys, though! Means a lot to get feedback from people who actually play the instrument I play, rather than people who say things like, "I thought it was really funny how you decided to play on a little kid guitar and it sounded good. LAWL!" Well, what I did to get this was, because I had just got the new mandolin, and decided that the mandola sound worked better in my band, I took viola strings and strung it with those. I tried double stringing it, but it rattled too much with multiple courses. I think it's a mandola tuning wise, but a mandolin in terms of scale length. I would consider it a short scaled mandola. But what do I know?! I'm just proud I taught everyone the word "mandola".

[Timmy Vilgiate]

Oh! And it's a politically correct talent show. We're all winners. Or. Uhm. Rather. We're all..."valued participants" I guess? haha.
I forgot to reply to all of these. Sorrrryyy. But. Yeah, it was fun. I enjoyed interacting with the crowd and stuff. I am not sure I would've won were it a contest, we have some pretty good musicians at our school. Even if I am the only one that plays mandola/mandolin.

[Denny Gies]

Nice job, and creative.

[priestandstringsmandolin]

Did someone...honestly...refer to your instrument as a sitar? Out of curiousity how did you handle that?
I enjoy the song for the most part, you seems a little nervous; I can hear a little bit of that coming through in the dynamics of your instrument. I also notice that after the first verse you are playing an auxillary melody on the a string, you might want to find a way to bring that up. Overall, though, really good song. Good vocal (minus a few iffy parts in "maybe"). I'd really like to hear some more of your stuff. How many songs have you written?

[Timmy Vilgiate]

Yes, they seriously did. :) Well. Uhm. I laughed. And they had asked if they could see it, so I taught them how to play C. I was very, very nervous. I think it killed my tone. Okay, does anyone have any suggestions for bringing out the auxillary melody? I'm not sure what to do there. I don't even know if it benefits the song holistically. And, yes, in "maybe" I messed up, but I have a lot of trouble singing in lydian. I have written about 200 songs this last year--this one was one of my less creative songs IMO, but I am still proud of the way it turned out. I read somewhere that fingerpicking the mandola was underexplored, so I found some chords in the key of c that worked around that idea and put them to some lyrics I wrote. Originally, in my head, this sounded like Yesterday by the Beatles, a little bit. It only really started coming together when I found the chord progression I wanted on my electric accordion. True story man. Anyway, you can look us up at soundcloud.com/cliffletters. I recorded an EP with the last incarnation of our band. Isaac, the guitarist left, and everything changed 100% since then, because the arrangement has a mandola as the basic instrument most of the time instead of a guitar, and the tempo on most of the songs doubled.