Voyage of discovery

[Tezzerh]

For me, one of the great joys of playing a mandolin is when I discover the music for a tune I have never heard of but which somehow appeals to me. I spend ages trying to play it, and then feel great satisfaction when it finally all comes together. I experienced this quite a few times with tunes from Don Julin’s excellent Mandolin For Dummies. Slow Cookin’ and La Valse Pour Petites Jeunes Filles were two I discovered there and they soon became two of my favourite mandolin melodies. Recently I came across a tune called Miss Hamilton, which has particular significance for me as that is my family name. I had never heard of this piece before but I have spent quite a few hours laboriously putting the notes together. For a while it sounded like… well, just a tuneless jumble of notes. I was determined to 'crack' it, simply because of the name. Then the other day all of a sudden it finally ‘clicked’. It all came together and it really is a nice tune. Oh, the joy! Am I alone in this voyage of discovery or do other Forum members have the same happy experiences?

[mandobassman]

I sometimes get into a rut where I pick up the mandolin and end up playing the same things for a while. Just today I was going through some You Tube videos and heard this tune played that was used for a mandolin demo. I loved the tune and pulled my mandolin out and learned it. Fortunately, it wasn't a very difficult tune, but fun to play none-the-less. I'm always looking for something new to learn and yes, there is a great satisfaction in finally getting it right.

[Jess L.]

For me, one of the great joys of playing a mandolin is when I discover the music for a tune I have never heard of but which somehow appeals to me. I spend ages trying to play it, and then feel great satisfaction when it finally all comes together.

Am I correct in thinking that you're referring primarily to discovering tunes in written-music format? If so, then yes I've experienced that too, it's almost like an archaeological find where you feel like you're discovering precious items that no one's seen (heard) in ages, notes of a tune or an outline of a tune in an old book somewhere, a mystery to solve, looking at the notes and trying to figure out the best way to interpret them, struggling with the tune for a while because it doesn't seem to sound like a tune that anyone would have liked well enough to bother writing down... And then - some time later - there's the "light bulb" moment when it all starts making sense, the rhythm and the harmony and everything starts to fit into place.

Sometimes I'll decide, fairly quickly, that a tune has absolutely no redeeming value and I'll toss it out. But, on occasion, I've later encountered some of these tunes months or years later, and find that I'd overlooked something obvious about how to play it, or else my own playing style had improved a little bit in the meantime so that I had a new way of approaching the tune, which worked out better. It doesn't always work out that way but it's nice when it does.

[Tezzerh]

Am I correct in thinking that you're referring primarily to discovering tunes in written-music format?

Yes, exactly that. It's like finding a valuable antique in the attic!