I “lost faith” in the mandolin...

[Scot63]

As a guitarist of middling skill for over thirty years, I never thought much about the mandolin and never really thought I liked its sound. Then, at the age of fifty, I heard Chris Thile's recording of the first three Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin. It really blew me away (and I know other cafe members have similarly strong feelings about that music—when will the next three be released?). Now I'm playing mandolin, mandola, and recently salvaged a K2 mandocello, and really enjoying all of them. Part of it is the joy of playing instruments tuned in fifths (unlike the guitar's frankly bizarre tuning), which for me allows much quicker identification of notation with the what I actually hear, so I made quick progress on the mandolin even as I had pretty much reached a plateau on the guitar. The mandolin has some severe limitations, to be sure: lack of sustain, and even the best tremolo technique (which I entirely lack) is a poor substitute for, say, the legato that a violin is a capable of. Still, limitations actually make for very interesting music, in the way that a net makes for very interesting tennis. Best of all for me, the guitar (and different repertoire for it) became more compelling for me, too.

[yankees1]

Absolutely ! I felt as you and was drawn back to an interest in motorcycles and even ordered a new 2018 HD ! But, after a spill at the DMV practice course on a scooter and receiving a concussion and brain bleed with the rebuilding of my cheek plate with three titanium plates I cancelled the HD and back to mandolins !

[Chris Browne]

I gave it up years ago because I felt like I wasn't advancing as a player. In retrospect I blame a dud of an instrument, my own isolation from the local musical community, and my ignorance of web resources. Fast forward to three years ago and I lucked into the purchase of an awesome instrument that inspires me every time I pick it up. I also now have some buddies to play with on a regular basis, and a list of mandolin heroes to listen to and learn from.

[Chris Browne]

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[drewgrass]

I totally understand. Mandolin lost a place in my music as I have been performing solo guitar. I sold my fern and don’t even own one now. But I’m about to buy a octave. I’ve written a lot of mandolin tunes but Truth is mandolin alone in a solo singer songwriter gig is only good for a couple tunes. I’m no Thile. And I’m not insulting it. It’s just hard to get over by itself if I had another player then yeah. But I’m done depending on other people to gig with.

[Ge23ev]

I played classical violin as a kid. Then I gave it up altogether with music. Then 10 years later I discovered this magical instrument the mandolin and I've been playing for like 2 years and I still have a hard time putting the instrument down after a good practice session. A couple of months ago I got a little bored with the high pitched tone of the mandolin so I went and bought an octave. Now the contrast between the two has got me going back and forth between the two constantly

[stringalong]

Interesting and (for a time for you) sad post. Glad you're fascinated again with your mandolin. I am in the same dilemma with my octave mandolin. I really don't like the way it sounds, and have mostly switched to the guitar, even though I plan mandolin better. I'm taking guitar lessons and love my guitar. (Mostly I play the "regular" small mandolin -- that's my main instrument. I'm pretty good and wish I were a real hotshot, but I'm not.) I put the octave mando up for sale, then changed my mind! There are some songs I do that I can play arrangements on it that won't work on the guitar. I'm considering putting nylon strings on the octave mandolin.

[Eric Platt]

Totally understand. In my case I "lost faith" in my guitar playing. When my old band broke up, there were lot of bad emotions. Part of my path to recovery was picking up mandolin. Still haven't been playing mandolin long enough to lose faith in it. Besides practice and band practices (and occasional shows) am too busy to lose faith yet. Will probably happen eventually.

Nice side effect - more folks now want to hear my guitar playing. More friends have come out of the woodwork to say they liked my playing.