Information on lessons, gigs, and misc musical stuff: www.mattcbruno.com
Weekly free Mandolin Lessons: www.mattcbruno.com/weekly-posts/
My gear and recommendations: www.mattcbruno.com/gear-recommendations/
Cooking fun: www.mattcbruno.com/quarantine-cookbook/
Mando's in use
Primary: Newson 2018
Secondary: Gibson F9 2014
Primary Electric: Jonathan Mann OSEMdc 5
Think of all the millions of people who have wonderful pianos at home. They don't take them outside to play but they still buy them so same applied to mandolin. Simple as that. It's just the enjoyment of having a great instrument and appreciating what it is regardless of whether you play indoors all the time or in public as well. When I have owned old Gibson F4s with Handel inlaid tuners I haven't played them in public but have loved owning and playing them at home. I have a valuable mandolin which I would much prefer to play when doing the odd gig but as I also play another two instruments in my band, I'm a bit reluctant to play my high end mandolin in case when I put it down, someone trips over it or whatever so I tend to keep it for home use only. If I was just in a duo or trio or just playing mandolin I would use it in public just because it is great, not to show off that I have a high end mandolin (Northfield Big Mon F).
Well, states can expand Medicaid eligibility to elderly persons who qualify financially. If the person has $125,500 available in various non-retirement accounts, the person certainly wouldn't qualify. But if the person only has $500 cash in his local bank account and a little ol' mandolin sitting in a case over in the corner and that musical instrument is considered by the case worker as an exempt asset, the person might otherwise qualify and enjoy all the cost saving benefits of enrollment.
Eat off the “good China” is my constant! My heirs have not made ANY interest in them, they will not polish silver, and rarely even wash the freaking dishes (maybe a bit young but, still...)!
I have made sure my wife’s breakfast is served on my grandmothers Limoges EVERY day, unless we are on vacation. It might be a wonderful local Sarkozy croissant, or a frozen Eggo waffle! I truly believe my home is not a shrine to accumulation but, a refuge for a little bastion of taste and elegance!
Life is short, our kids won’t want to deal with most of our “collections” no matter how much I try to interest them in playing some “personal” music. The world just keeps spinning and we mere mortals can do nothing about it. I’ e been trying to sell a set of Havilland “Harvard” plates for ten years, no one cares, this Christmas, they might just be going out as cookie plates! Barware? Well, that’s a little different, that always breaks! Usually when I have a bad day washing up next morning!
Gee, that got a little long winded, sorry.
Last edited by Timbofood; Aug-14-2019 at 6:57pm.
Timothy F. Lewis
"If brains was lard, that boy couldn't grease a very big skillet" J.D. Clampett
Here's a question: if you don't play in public, then why not?
Mandolin: Kentucky KM150
Other instruments: way too many, and yet, not nearly enough.
My blog: https://theoffgridmusician.music.blog/
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChF...yWuaTrtB4YORAg
My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/africanbanjogunnar/
Free backing tracks:
https://backingtrackers.wordpress.com/
I would assume many who afford this do it because they appreciate the workmanship and tone. I see no reason why it should be assumed only gigging musicians can appreciate and want that.
My avatar is of my OldWave Oval A
Creativity is just doing something wierd and finding out others like it.
the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world
I agree, Bertram. I love playing music with other folks. You get interaction and ideas that couldn't happen all by yourself. If that counts for public, then I'm in...
"All of us contain Music & Truth, but most of us can't get it out." - Mark Twain
Eastman MD615SB
Martin D35
Gibson SG
Well said, To play one doesn't have to play "out" I enjoy playing at home just as much as playing for people but its pretty nice when you play for folks who appreciate it, I play a lot of churches, nursing homes, even outside at ice cream joints with my band that's been together about a year-we don't do the bar thing with this lineup, and the young and old love it, the songs bring them back to things of their childhood, maybe remembering simpler times, lost family from now or long ago. Its nice when they tell you that about certain songs! Also nice when they say your great musicians or the best mandolin player they've ever heard-I know that's not true, I just humbly say thanks and well we do our best but we're not professionals that do this as a job as there are loads of talent out there-they don't care, we have a following of the same old timers and younger folks. That's maybe a reason God wanted me to stick around awhile longer after all my various health problems that almost killed me a handful of times, is to bring some joy to certain people?
Its also pretty sweet when a young kid says boy I want to learn that kind of music and you can point them in the direction!
I agree. If you have a gift of musical talent, share it with others (even if that means just jamming with buddies). It'll make other people's lives better and you'll benefit exponentially as well.
The guy I'm playing with, he's the guitar man and his son is on banjo-my cousin on upright bass, a few others and me on mandolin, He used to play in his wife's family gospel band "The Stewart Family" They played all over the Country in the 70's-early 90's I think? And he says this is the most fun he's ever had playing music with all of us. We don't get paid much for our gigs, donation mostly from people and churches-they all Love it! We played a Church a month or so ago, and it was a dying church, I think they said they had maybe 12 people in their morning service, we packed them in for our performance and we made out good in the collection taken up. I said to the Guitar man- Denny as he's our fearless leader, I don't want the $ give it to that church as a donation as they could use it more than myself, the rest of the guys were on board and the Church was very grateful. For us its not about the $, its about bringing some happiness to people!
I get this a lot but I travel weekly every week. I also do not live in town and after traveling a 1000 + miles a week when I’m finally home I want to stay there and there just aren’t any people I know around here to jam with. Opportunity just isn’t there. I’m in South Dakota and not in any town. I have driven half a day before and only seen two cars. I also don’t buy into the myth there is some responsibility that if you play you should play for others. That’s BS, I play for me first and my family second. A great stress reliever.
My avatar is of my OldWave Oval A
Creativity is just doing something wierd and finding out others like it.
Ha! I play in my backyard all the time. When I run into people from the next street whose backyards connect to mine, I frequently get asked if I'm the guy who plays the mandolin, or something like I was visiting your next door neighbor, and I've heard you playing mandolin. So I try not to practice the same thing over and over, or do scale exercises when in the backyard. Knowing people are listening gives me a focus I would not normally have had.
Silverangel A
Arches F style kit
1913 Gibson A-1
Most folks I play in front of wouldn't know a great mandolin from a lousy one. It sounds like a mandolin. So no, I cant justify having even a $10K mando
My comment was not meant to be judgemental at all, it was actually a legitimate question to assuage my curiosity (temporarily at best) because where I live there's not really any opportunities to play publicly, and I have a performer personality, so I like to play for people whenever I can. Even rarer, and more fun, is the opportunity to play with others.
Mandolin: Kentucky KM150
Other instruments: way too many, and yet, not nearly enough.
My blog: https://theoffgridmusician.music.blog/
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChF...yWuaTrtB4YORAg
My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/africanbanjogunnar/
Free backing tracks:
https://backingtrackers.wordpress.com/
I'm the fill in host at an open mic where we try to encourage people to perform. They always try to make excuses they are not good enough. I've pushed people off the fence and onto the stage quite a few times. They say they don't have a guitar, I hand them mine. They say they will come next week, I hand them my guitar and say don't waste a week. They say they are nervous, I tell them thats everyone at first. They say what if I screw up, I tell them everyone does, we understand and don't care. I've been thanked many times for pressing them to do what they really want to do. There have been some memorable performances. Some people can naturally sing.
We have a core group of pretty talented folks. I worry that deters new performers and go out of my way to encourage other newbies. And when someone is truly awful, disappear for a while, then come back and play better, I figure my job was done. Nothing like a performance to focus one's mind.
I remember the young double amputee poet tear the place apart with raw talent. I remember the four year old boy with the sweetest voice this side of heaven, the bagpiper, the pro folksinger killing a night between gigs, and the guy who sang acapella in Chinese with 20 of his family there to watch, just a whole gamut of differences people can bring to the table. And believe me, you would be welcomed for just not being another guy with a guitar. So get off the fence. You might like it, and if not, you'll never wonder what if.
It won't help you if you live in the boonies, but there are open mics in a lot of towns. Go try one.
Silverangel A
Arches F style kit
1913 Gibson A-1
"It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
--M. Stillion
"Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
--J. Garber
You certainly have a unique location, but I knew an ethnomusicolegest who had a small grant to go to a new location every year and record local music. He took a guitar to the end of a transportation line, then by dugout up the river, or by camel to a remote place. He always found music and musicians to play with and record. He made a bunch of friends with a pack loaded with strings for the local instruments he had researched. Music was the only common language.
Silverangel A
Arches F style kit
1913 Gibson A-1
Yeah, one of our best friends is an ethnomusicologist, but the only music the locals here listen to (and occasionally make) is Brazilian pop (I assume that's where it's from) and it's worse than American pop music. And all played on a casio keyboard. Anyway, any music I could make would not interest them more than me being a white kid, and I already get too much attention for that (where's an eyeroll emoji when you need it?)
Mandolin: Kentucky KM150
Other instruments: way too many, and yet, not nearly enough.
My blog: https://theoffgridmusician.music.blog/
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChF...yWuaTrtB4YORAg
My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/africanbanjogunnar/
Free backing tracks:
https://backingtrackers.wordpress.com/
MAS is apparently more difficult to treat than I first thought. Tomorrow I need to photograph a motorcycle, a banjo, my nicest guitar and a mandolin I never dreamed I would sell so I can get them listed for sale. The new love is bird's eye and beautiful and wants to live at my house. I don't deserve an instrument this nice but...
Out of tune and out of time.
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