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Notes from the Field

Sometimes my enthusiasm for this little eight string marvel just boils over and I have to tell someone. I figure this is a safer way to do it, than to yet again bore my friends.

  1. Poetry from the past

    I am posting here a poem I wrote (cobbled together) maybe 8 or nine years ago, when in the middle of the pick price rants.

    I post it because I spent a bunch of time trying to find it, and for the future I know it will always be here.

    A young mandolinner named Dave,
    Found a flat rock in a cave,
    It was too bulky and thick
    To make a good pick,
    But think of the money he'd save!



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  2. The shape of the past

    The aesthetics are important. Certainly aesthetics are secondary to tone and playability and build quality. But, even within those limits we do need to consider shape of the instrument.

    A lot of what is important to me about music is its connections to past music. And the aesthetic connection helps with that. I can more easily see myself as a part of something gigantic with a long history and legacy if my instrument is either old, or looks similar enough to what was used "back ...

    Updated Jul-17-2021 at 2:26pm by JeffD

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  3. New Mandolin Day Endorphins - Rod Neep

    I have a theory that MAS is born of the endorphin hit one experiences acquiring a new mandolin, and the panic inducing thought that we may never experience that again.

    I was just congratulating a member on her new mandolin and I got to thinking about this. Not wanting to hijack her thread and her joy on her new mandolin day, I thought I would share my thoughts here.

    Rod Neep is a member here, though I we have not heard from him in a long time. in 2009 he did what we would ...
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  4. It is, perhaps, all there is

    I have had my share of tragedy and sadness in life. Not significantly more than most and much less then many. My point is not to get sympathy, but to share a few things I have figured out.


    Limited resources due to unforseen life events taught me at a relatively early age that experiences are better things to pursue than possessions. Experiences cannot be stolen by thieves or lost through carelessness, or divorce, or destroyed in a hurricane, or repossessed by the bank.
    ...

    Updated Nov-18-2020 at 5:15pm by JeffD

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  5. Light in the Dark

    We all go through grey and dark times: Being alone when I did not want to be, being with people I’d rather not be. Not having what I want and having a lot I don’t, not being who I want to be by this time, or worse, having to ask myself, as did Peggy Lee: "Is that all there is?"

    Being caught in a lie, or worse, being caught in a truth.

    And darker times.

    Losing friends over ridiculous arguments far less important (or informed) than was the friendship. ...

    Updated Dec-03-2019 at 11:01am by JeffD

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  6. Bragging Rights

    There is a syndrome, in my experience much more common among some guitar players, where bragging rights accrue to getting the absolute cheapest most beat up instrument possible. I think it has to do with resolving the cognitive dissonance of playing blues, down and dirty blues, on a guitar costing a couple months pay, or more, at a good job. Authenticity, or something like. But whatever the reason, a fellow carrying a guitar that looks like it was found in the men's room of the New York City Port ...

    Updated Mar-05-2018 at 9:34pm by JeffD

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  7. The Mandolin Life

    In various threads about getting better you will hear complaints about how little time is available for mandolin. Working two jobs, keeping three kids fed, negotiating four ex-wives, only five days of vacation… I hear you.

    This is not a “priorities” lecture, I am not going to tell you that you have the same 24 hours in a day that everyone does, this is not going to be a time management tips and tricks discussion.

    My experience is much more gradual and organic. Mandolin ...

    Updated Jan-29-2018 at 12:54pm by JeffD

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  8. Getting More Betterer

    Getting More Betterer

    I have been reading “The Inner Game of Music”, which I highly recommend. It’s not a religion or philosophy, though it can be. One or two ideas from that book can really make a difference.

    Anyway, through some of the thinking in that book, and lots of coffee chat afterword, and being tired of struggling with technique for its own sake, I have a useful perspective I can finally put into words. It applies to most of us, but perhaps not all.
    ...

    Updated Jul-07-2017 at 9:42pm by JeffD

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  9. Acts of Defiance

    Hang on folks this is important.

    Every year I throw a large music party at a local state park pavilion. At times we have had as many as 65 or 70 attendees. Once or twice we had three simultaneous jams, old time and traditional, hard core Irish traditional, and one for old country and western songs.

    Mandolins, yea, but banjos too, fiddles galore, two or three cellos, maybe an accordion and a clarinet, one or two autoharps, and many guitars.

    Been doing this for ...
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  10. The Mandolin in America

    I recall, a long time ago in a grade school far, far away, a teacher attempting to take us into the very distant past and get us to imaginatively appreciate ancient history in the first person. As if we were there, in ancient times, living it. This must have been fifth grade, or likely earlier. A class mate raised his hand and offered the observation that, “it was much easier to go to school back then. Kids didn’t have as much history to learn.”

    I think this is a very American observation. ...

    Updated Jan-27-2017 at 9:46am by JeffD

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