From a January 2008 Vintage Guitar Magazine article...
For most of his career, Thile has played mandolins built by luthier Lynn Dudenbostel. He acquired Dudenbostel #5 in 1998, then sold it to buy #14 in 2001. Several years later, he bought back #5 because he liked it so much. “When I first got it back I hardly recognized the sound. The mandolin hadn’t been played much and had gone to sleep. I could still hear it in the background, but I was a little concerned that my memory was bad about how it sounded. It took several months for the mandolin to get back to the sound and feel that I remembered.” His experience with “Dude #5,” as he calls it, convinced Thile that instruments go to sleep if they aren’t played regularly. “I think if you honestly love your instruments, you have to play them regularly.”
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