Notes from the Field
Doing it Wrong
by , Dec-19-2014 at 12:06pm (22538 Views)
This is the way it happens.
Step one – a newbie asks a perfectly legitimate question on technique, or needs some received advice clarified.
Step two – Various folks respond with helpful ideas, often quoting some of the great teachers of mandolin, present and past.
Step three – Someone disagrees – referencing some bigger than life famous player who does it differently, as some kind of invalidation of the advice and of the teachers’ instructions.
Step four – phrases inevitably get passed around as follows: “do what you have to” “there is no right or wrong” “it’s all personal preference” “there is no wrong way” “whatever works for you”.
This pattern has happened enough times I am sure it is familiar. Somehow we get stuck there, either arguing the fine points (I didn’t mean directly on it... I meant…), or providing intriguing exceptions to every accepted wisdom (my cousin has one leg longer than the other so he doesn’t need a foot stool), to interesting personal anecdotes (well I find it easier to use my finger nails and tune in fourths, after removing one of each string – feels more like what I was used to with guitar), to referencing great players with quirky habits (holding the mandolin vertically and picking with his thumb hasn’t held Kenny Hall back any). The discussion then goes like a marble in a bowl wandering around these points without making forward progress, until all are bored with it and the newbie that started it all has decided to take up the banjo.
I have been a part of these discussions, at all the steps, asking for advice, giving advice, disagreeing with advice, and quoting exceptions. Its great fun. It is my habit to drink coffee when I am at my computer, and by now I have put Mr. Starbucks’ children through college I am sure.
So in an attempt to spin this marble yet again, this time uninterrupted, let me get my coffee and get to it.
There is a standard way to hold and play the mandolin. And before you get your hackles up, let me be explicit - that does not mean any of the following:
- It doesn’t mean that departure from the standard is wrong.
- It doesn’t mean that there aren’t exceptional players who depart from the standard.
- It doesn’t mean that the teachers of the standard don’t depart from it at times.
- It doesn’t mean that I don’t depart from the standard.
- It doesn’t mean that you should never depart from the standard.
- It doesn’t mean the standard isn’t evolving, or that everyone agrees on every point.
- It doesn’t mean that holding up a standard is being a slave to convention.
- It doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t or can’t be creative.
There is a standard. It works for most people most of the time, and is an excellent way for a beginner to get moving with a minimum of heart ache.
I think many people misunderstand what a standard is. Many folks think standard is synonymous with right. Which unavoidably makes non-standard synonymous with wrong. And how dare you tell me I am wrong when the great “Golden Mando-boy” himself plays the same way. How dare you tell me I am wrong when my left hand was surgically reconstructed after an accident with a garbage disposal. How dare you tell me I am wrong.
Playing mandolin, like many endeavors, is best begun by beginning, as opposed to walking around and around looking for a front door. No matter how you begin, down the line you are going to modify, correct, relearn, and adjust things you took as gospel at the beginning. There is no avoiding it.
My personal experience has verified to me over and over and over the value of standards. Whenever I find myself at a plateau in my playing, where better never seems to happen – whenever I am stuck, it is because of some non-standard technique that I have not addressed. As soon as I figure it out, progress seems to flood in like there was a breach in the submarine wall. Till the next plateau, where I have to find the next “bad habit” that is limiting me. (Many bad habits go unnoticed, I think, because they are of no consequence as long as you have more important, more egregious and limiting issues to work on.)
I think that responding to a legitimate question with “there is no right or wrong” “do whatever is comfortable and gets the job done” etc., is not only unhelpful, but it is wrong. Advice and instruction from John McGann, Mike Marshall, Peter Martin, and all the other great teachers, is very important, very helpful. Much more helpful than sharing my personal experience. When a newbie is not sure what to do, the newbie could do a whole lot worse than following the advice of great teachers. I think it is probably better to follow their instructions than to emulate the specific behaviors any particular mandolin player, no matter how great. Certainly better than emulating me.
I believe a student that learns the standard way of doing things is much much better off, acknowledging all the exceptions and contradictions. The framework holds, even if individual accommodations have to be made to the details for specific reasons and specific goals, either temporarily or permanently. If I was told it doesn’t matter, do what you want, do what is comfortable, I would dropped the instrument as soon as it got hard, as soon as my finger tips hurt, as soon as I knew I couldn’t play.
Yea but, yea but… this famous guy holds the mandolin neck in the crotch of his hand, this other one pinky plants, and she lets fingers fly, and that one holds the pick at a reverse angle, …
Referencing great mandolinners that have non-standard techniques just contributes to one’s feeling bad. It’s like you are pointing out not only that I am doing it wrong, but I am doing it wrong inadequately, because I know I don’t sound remotely like those prodigies who are doing it wrong. ... Gimmy a banjo.
The fallacy in this thinking is that these great mandolinners certainly did not get there by playing non-standard. Their success is more explained by talent, practice, and experience, and getting so many other things super right, and as a result these noticeable non-standard things don’t get in the way. Furthermore, amazing talent knows when and where to hold to the standard, where and when the standard doesn’t apply, and where and when deliberate violation of the standard is a good artistic decision.
For those of us who aren’t amazing talents, the standards work real well and likely we would be better with more adherence.
I am not of the opinion that teaching standards, and teaching that there is a standard, gets in the way of creativity. In fact I think the opposite, gigantic creativity and great beauty occurs working within the rules, within expected norms, and trying to find unexpected beauty in unexplored territory between the rules, and selective and surprising violation of expectations. This is not the same as saying there are no rules. Pushing the envelope does not mean there shouldn’t be an envelope. One of the identifiers that something artistically great has happened is that the accomplishments of the artist result in the envelope being questioned or expanded, lines get moved. Convention, and expectations are forever changed.
Where is the beauty if it doesn’t matter what you do?
Look, you can do whatever you want. However, you cannot escape the consequences of doing whatever you want.
Really, the truth is I really don’t care. I don’t care how anyone plays the mandolin, be they famous, non-famous, or infamous. I really don’t. Maybe it’s because I have never been an emulator. Perhaps to my detriment, I am willing to admit. Many things in my life might have been easier for me if instead of trying to figure out how to do things I just copied how I was seeing it done. But then again…
There is a famous story I heard from a preacher, about a cat that was born with a birth defect that prevented it from walking normally. The cat grew up and had kittens, who emulated their mother’s awkward gate though they themselves had no defect requiring it. Likely not a true story, but the preacher’s point was to ask how many of us burden ourselves with behaviors and thoughts and defenses and accommodations that we learned from others without checking if they really applied to us or if we needed them.
My point is, ummm…. hang on....
Well it’s a good story anyway. The extent it applies is the extent it is relevant I guess.
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