Miscellaneous ramblings

we'll see how many songs I'm going to have to learn in the next month or two

...of songs I know or once could play before one of my recent hiatuses from playing. Count is up to 41! So why do I have such a hard time remembering a tune at a jam?

I'm not sure what it is about picking up the mandolin after time away from it, but once I shake the dust out of the fingers and rebuild the calluses (if necessary) I have found that my playing has somehow gotten better. Its odd. Like my brain needed the time off to sort and arrange things for easier accessibility or something. I'm sure there are neuroscience articles on this, and I'm also sure time away should really best be limited to a week or two at most, not months at a time, but there we are. ...

...on fingertips. Highly annoying. And painful.

Lance it or leave it? Regardless, this callus will have a crater!

To those of you who have written to inform me of the proper spelling of competence...thanks! I know. But its a stumble to get there

Well, its been many months since I last picked up my mandolin--the mountain biking season is so short, and my spare time so limited, that I can apparently have only one active hobby at a time. But I'm going to try to start with some evening picking to help wind down from the hectic work day.

Not really sure how I should proceed with my learning. There are just so many directions to go in, I'm a bit overwhelmed. I have some travel in my future, but when I return I am thinking that ...

After years and years with my Ratcliff. More later.

No, its not a Red Diamond

Despite the pressures of work, I am keeping my discipline and am practicing at least an hour at least 5 days a week! I am really pleased that my fingering is so much lighter, because that helps to play faster, cleaner.

But what I am working on most is relaxed, good tone. And chords, what I have been skipping to date. Now seems to be a good time to work on them.

How I am breaking down an hour to ensure I get a full workout:

1. Aonzo scale exercise, at 90, 115,

...

Back from vacation, and a few outstanding questions have been answered. One, it takes only two practice sessions until you can noticeably tell the callouses are rebuilding. Two, going from 85F to 0F can depress your immune system (*cough*).

My last blog entry provoked more response than any other, centering around this comment:

The biggest problem I have had before is that my background is not from bluegrass, and learning a new genre of music when learning an instrument is

...

The past few years have been difficult for various personal reasons, and this year has been a bit of a tipping point for me. It just got so that playing the mandolin brought no joy--or seemed too much of an effort to bother.

So, I went on a hiatus for a while, and knowing that exercise helps mild depressions, I placed some focus there for a while. After some minor surgery on my wrist (mentioned in the forums) I started reading the forums again, and listening to the mandolin music ...