Search:

What has helped me is to play/practice in different rooms of the house, in different parts of the room, facing different things in rooms, playing outside, playing with lights on/off, playing for...

Arnold Schultz, the blues guitar player referenced above, that influenced Bill Monroe and let a young Monroe accompany him during some gigs, also played with a black mandolin player named Walter...

I’m not going to feel bad for Amazon. Their policy was designed to take sales away from businesses they drove out of business. And if one wants timely shipping now with Amazon, they have to pay $120...

Everyone is different, obviously, but I would frankly welcome the depression in the finish/wood as a sign that the manufacturer didn’t cake the finish on so thick as to rob it of tone.

Loved it. Thanks.

Yeah, events are being cancelled or attendance is being restricted left and right, so no assisted living gigs for me in the near future. I understand these restrictions as the elderly and otherwise...

A satin finish looks cheap in my opinion, in person up close. It looks like a half built instrument, like the builder ran out of funds or patience and said, "Let's just get this thing done and out of...

The light came on for me watching the Northfield videos with Mike Marshall and Emory Lester. Great music and up close video. What did I notice? They move/rotate their hand around quite a bit. They...

Here's video of the Gibson mandolin pictured above and another (Gibson Fern I'd guess) in action. Go to 1:55 for mandolin exclusive jamming and brief mention of the mandolin being a new varnish model...

In the race to claim the most authentic Loar era spec and graduated F5 mandolin ever produced, the new Gibson management team confirms that indeed, using DNA collected from the inside of a 1924 F-5...

Cool story and congrats. And although I graduated from HS in Ohio and went to college in Ohio before transferring to LSU and then UW, I've grown to detest OSU to the point where I couldn't enjoy...

Well, to update, the amount from the bank card isn't back in my hands yet. But something positive did come of this.

I went to use the various gift cards on a new order as five of the six cards...

Sweet. Congratulations.

Haha. Yes, indeed. "O come, O come E..ma..a..an..do..lin, release the funds from my..eye wall..allet."

Yeah, I thought about using a capo. But I changed strings two days ago and thought the main problem was the roundness of the loop hole. So using the same needle nose pliers I cut the excess string...

Well done. Before picking up the mandolin, I started seeing a pattern. All of the best flatpickers also played the mandolin, even if casually so. Clarence White. Doc Watson. Norman Blake. Steve...

Haha. I don't need Spotify to tell me I listen to Clarence White a lot more than anyone else. It's not even close. Even my soon to be 3 year old daughter knows who Clarence White is and wants him on...

Sweet mandolin.

Frankly, I wish the finish on all instruments was weighted more towards maximizing tone than protecting an unplayed appearance. I think manufacturers know there are a lot of...

Listening to the portion about the test for whether playing music alters cellular building blocks (or something like that) which then makes visible the soul of a person makes me wonder about...

There was a great interview with George Gruhn that came out in an article this past summer. Gruhn identified three classes of guitar buyers; players, collectors, and speculators. He placed the value...

I was there. Long time guitar player later on picking up the mandolin. I'm 6'1", though, with average to large hands I suppose. I went with the Eastman MD 515. It felt wierd at first, but I got the...

Thile always struck me as genuine, as an artist who lets the music completely take him over in every way to the point where he doesn't care one thousandth of one percent what anyone else thinks of...

I once thought about doing that-using thumbpicks. My skin chemistry is such that picks of all sorts get super slippery. Some say BlueChip picks get grippy when warm. Not for me. Still slippery.
...

A documentary on Bluegrass left out Clarence White? Seriously? That's like doing a documentary on Woodstock and leaving out Jimi Hendrix.

The part of your post that caught my attention was the little part where you said you don't know what the right instrument is. I'd say step one has to be finding the answer to that question by...