When is a newbie no longer a newbie?

[Br1ck]

When a year or two or three goes by?

When you start playing fiddle tunes from the intermediate section of a website?

When you find yourself giving mandolin advise?

When you've upgraded for the third time in two years?

When you can finally call that mandolin with the curlyque thingy by it's proper name?

When you can name half a dozen mandolin players?

When two or more girlfriends have dumped you?

When Cumberland becomes a thing rather than a place?

When you finally tried heavier strings, and they don't hurt too bad?

When your callouses from decades of guitar playing enlarge enough to cover the mandolin area on the fingertips?

When you decide you're good enough to sound crappy in public instead of just your living room?

When your pets no longer leave the room?

When you think you have an opinion good enough to reply to pretty much any thread?

When you've started six new threads in two days just because, you know, you're mandoliny special?

[sblock]

Once a newbie, always a newbie.

[HonketyHank]

I have to admit you touched quite a few nerves there, br1ck.

[Br1ck]

If you can't poke fun at yourself, who can you poke fun at?

[MikeZito]

I don't know about anyone else, but my Newbie Membership Card has no expiration date on it . . . .

[soliver]

Dunno, ...I'll tell you when I get there.

[Eric Platt]

When you can no longer use it as an excuse during gigs? Though it seems that I'm playing more gigs recently as a guitarist, than mandolin player. Maybe that should be telling me something.

How about - when you no longer are pushing the strings out of tune on your OM while fretting? Still can't do that without thought. So, still a newbie.

[Paul Busman]

Cute list. I'm guilty of more than one of those

I like the idea that we're always newbies in the sense that there's always something new to learn.

[farmerjones]

Embrace what it is to be a newbie.

Just when I got the I, ii, IV, V , iv in a few keys, I changed instruments.

The Music ain't in the little wooden box.

[roysboy]

When a year or two or three goes by?

When you start playing fiddle tunes from the intermediate section of a website?

When you find yourself giving mandolin advise?

When you've upgraded for the third time in two years?

When you can finally call that mandolin with the curlyque thingy by it's proper name?

When you can name half a dozen mandolin players?

When two or more girlfriends have dumped you?

When Cumberland becomes a thing rather than a place?

When you finally tried heavier strings, and they don't hurt too bad?

When your callouses from decades of guitar playing enlarge enough to cover the mandolin area on the fingertips?

When you decide you're good enough to sound crappy in public instead of just your living room?

When your pets no longer leave the room?

When you think you have an opinion good enough to reply to pretty much any thread?

When you've started six new threads in two days just because, you know, you're mandoliny special?

YES.....all that will convince you ( if not listeners ) that you're no longer a newbie .

[Bertram Henze]

When you decide you're good enough to sound crappy in public instead of just your living room?

This one. You decide what you are.

[OneChordTrick]

Well I always thought Cumberland was a type of sausage but apart from the dog not running away when I start playing I don’t tick any off the boxes - don’t think I can count the girlfriends who left before I got a mandolin - so I’m firmly a newbie.

[Br1ck]

Last night I was asked to play a number on mandolin with a friend at open mic. Not only had I never played the song, I'd never comped behind anyone before, or improvised a solo. Thank God I've been practicing scales. But my chord vocabulary is abysmal. I need to work on that.

I do get that the stage is a great teacher. But it was horrifying, humbling, and a rush all at once.

[Bertram Henze]

don’t think I can count the girlfriends who left before I got a mandolin

I can, so my sample is not statistically significant. But I understand the reasons in every single instance by now and therefore need no statistics to know that music had no truck with it.

[allenhopkins]

When you get your second mandolin.

Extra bonus points if you also hold on to the first one -- you know, "to take camping," "to take to the office," "in case you need to get the other one repaired," etc. etc.

[Charlie Bernstein]

When a year or two or three goes by?

When you start playing fiddle tunes from the intermediate section of a website?

When you find yourself giving mandolin advise?

When you've upgraded for the third time in two years?

When you can finally call that mandolin with the curlyque thingy by it's proper name?

When you can name half a dozen mandolin players?

When two or more girlfriends have dumped you?

When Cumberland becomes a thing rather than a place?

When you finally tried heavier strings, and they don't hurt too bad?

When your callouses from decades of guitar playing enlarge enough to cover the mandolin area on the fingertips?

When you decide you're good enough to sound crappy in public instead of just your living room?

When your pets no longer leave the room?

When you think you have an opinion good enough to reply to pretty much any thread?

When you've started six new threads in two days just because, you know, you're mandoliny special?

Yup!

[ukenukem]

When your significant other stays in the room when you play?

[Denny Gies]

I'd say you are no longer a newbie when you can hold your own in a good jam session.

[soliver]

When your significant other stays in the room when you play?

Wifey hates BG, so if that's what is required, I will eternally don the Hal's of newbie-dom

[Jack Roberts]

My dog still gets up and walks out the room when I play.

I'm still a newbie!

[OldSausage]

I think you stop being a newbie as soon as you realize how little you know.

[Papalobo]

When you think in Mandolin , i.e. when you hear any piece of music and you conceptualize it in those terms where would my mandolin line be ... and execute naturally in any an all the nuances of the instrument ... A long journey for any of us on any instrument

[Mando Mort]

I consider it a journey of learning and enjoying...perhaps a lifelong newbie that gets a little bit better over time.

[LadysSolo]

I will no longer be a "newbie" when I think I am good, or at least able to play through a fairly easy new piece (sight-reading) without stumbling all over the place.

[apple]

Maybe somewhere around five years more or less. Then you're experienced and pretty good or maybe not so good lol.