Thanks, mandolin. I owe you a lot. You were the perfect 2nd instrument, when I was looking to find something else to do in addition to guitar (age of 20). You fit right in to the stuff I liked on guitar (folk, rock, blues), and added your own cool take on some fascinating new types of music: Irish, contra dance, bluegrass and old-time, French/Canadian and traditional music from various parts of France. You were my portal to those worlds, my port key, if you like. Maybe I would have found some of them through guitar. But mando was what actually did it. And if there was one guy who sparked me back then, it was David Grisman, from American Beauty to Old & in the Way to the second DGQ album.
Nice effect on the guitar, too, this looking at things in a more linear fashion, breaking away from chord shapes more and more into lines of treble and bass, melody and accompaniment, and the guitar and the mandolin complementing each other so nicely. Modes on the mando made so much more sense. Fresh sounds opened up, and came floating back to the guitar.
So you brought me into some new worlds, and let me bring my old stuff, too. And over the years, I’ve found an amazing world of mandolinning out there. Mandolinists lean towards each other, putting the “cult” in culture, as it seems sometimes. It’s a great community to be a part of.
And let’s not forget that the mandolin brought me to my wife: I used to go and sit in on her gigs with my mando, and thus wooed her. A good tremolo is always welcome, apparently. We are a good team. So, thanks, mandolin.
Bookmarks