Re: Stamina
What's sore? If it's your fingers, practice more 'til you get them conditioned. If it's your body, I can only ask, "What are you doing with that mandolin?" I try to pick up the mandolin at least once a day. Sometimes I pick for maybe only 10 minutes but often it's an hour or more.
As far as stamina, that something you'll have to figure out. I don't know how old you are but a 3-hour gig ain't bad. My band has done that every Saturday night for almost 5 years. (We're doing it tonight.) There have been occasions when we did 3 gigs in one day (one benefit, two paying, the last time). Was I tired at the end of the day? You betcha. On the other hand, I'm 73 years old. We do about 10-12 gigs a month.
Our band has been together for over 10 years, remaining virtually unchanged in that time. We rehearse once a week. We've played a lot of our repertoire for most of that time and they pose no problems. We spend rehearsal time on new songs or changing the old ones around.
It boils down to "Practice, man, practice," as the hippie on the street said when asked about the way to get to Carnegie Hall.
David Hopkins
2001 Gibson F-5L mandolin
Breedlove Legacy FF mandolin; Breedlove Quartz FF mandolin
Gibson F-4 mandolin (1916); Blevins f-style Octave mandolin, 2018
McCormick Oval Sound Hole "Reinhardt" Mandolin
McCormick Solid Body F-Style Electric Mandolin; Slingerland Songster Guitar (c. 1939)
The older I get, the less tolerant I am of political correctness, incompetence and stupidity.
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