I've been a fiddle and keyboard player most of my life, and play some guitar (poorly) too. I would pick up a friend's mandolin from time to time but never really thought seriously about getting my own until a year or so ago. After looking around and saving some money, I pulled the trigger this last summer when my Pava A found me. I play it most every day, sometimes for too long (says my mostly-tolerant wife). I still enjoy playing my other instruments, but none of them ever demanded my attention to the degree that the mandolin has. I could probably think through many reasons why that is, but really it just comes down to the fact that the mandolin is cool. I look cool playing it, I feel cool holding it, it is cool to look at, and most importantly it sounds cool. I'm not just talking about my mandolin, though it is definitely super cool, but pretty much all mandolins. In the last six months I've played Flatiron, Gibson, Northfield, Passernig, Turkey Creek, Morrell, iii, Collings, Breedlove, Eastman, Kentucky, Brentrup, Phoenix, Kay, Ellis, and Weber mandolins, and probably a few others I'm forgetting. They were all very cool instruments, even the Kay (well one of them was a stinker, but with new strings and a setup it might a cool mandolin). And judging by the opinions of people here, there are many many more cool mandolins out there, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on them.
Now playing a mandolin certainly does not automatically make one cool (I may feel cool, but my friends wouldn’t describe me as such), but the research shows mandolin players are much more likely to be cool people than the general population. So congratulations, most of you, on being a cool person playing a cool instrument. But don't let it go to your head, keep cool!
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