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Thread: To look at the mando or not?

  1. #26
    Professional Dreamer journeybear's Avatar
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    Default Re: To look at the mando or not?

    I must say, I never have. I can't even figure how that term is derived. Doesn't make idiomatic sense, nor even grammatical. Curious.

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  2. #27
    two t's and one hyphen fatt-dad's Avatar
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    Default Re: To look at the mando or not?

    everything's going fine. A string of clams. Yeah, better check your grip!

    Otherwise? I'd rather look at my picking hand! That's where the music is!

    f-d
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  3. #28
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: To look at the mando or not?

    While it is true we can't look in two places at once, almost nobody stares continuously at their hands. So I think it quite possible to fulfil your obligations as a musician to catch the smiles of the audience and or other jammers, and at the same check in on your fingers now and again.
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  5. #29
    String-Bending Heretic mandocrucian's Avatar
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    Default Re: To look at the mando or not?

    While you are learning you'll probably watch at your hands, especially on mando, guitar, banjo, or keyboards, to monitor what you are playing. It can be useful, but far too often it becomes a visual crutch. (Just as always needing sheet music.) The classical bunch will say looking at your hands is wrong, because they want you to be constantly looking at the dots instead, which has it's own set of negatives.

    The sooner you start to wean yourself from the necessity of looking, the better off you'll be in the long run. And the way to do that is alternating between Look/Don't Look , even if you are staying in the first position. And it becomes more important when you start shifting up and down the neck. The visual is probably the dominant sense, tending to override the others unless you take steps to train the others. When you know that you'll have to play that scale pattern up and the neck on one string the next time with your eyes closed, it makes you start to pay much more attention to the tactile while you look. "How much/far to move my hand for the shifts." This starts to shift your mental attention away from sight and to the touch.

    (Doing karate forms/katas blindfolded in not uncommon at all; it trains you to maintain the distance or your steps, mainting the angles of the turns etc. They'll mark an "X" on the floor where you start, and usually you should end up in the same place at the completion of the exercise. Another thing (eyes open) is that the sensei will have you start facing a different direction in the room. Often the student will subconsciously orient their movements to which wall they are facing at various stages in the kata; when they have to start facing in the opposite direction, to towards a corner, they find themselves getting confused because they get visually disoriented. I think any black belt on this forum can attest to this.

    I've seen plenty of high grade players that tend to be hand lookers, and maybe that fine and sufficient for the stuff they are playing. But, are they just sticking to a "script" they have rehearsed over and over, or are they going into the trance/zone? The former will guarantee that you put on a good show all the time - the audience have no way of knowing. But it's like seeing the same act doing the same jokes in the same place gig after gig .. but hey, it "entertainment!"

    Ever notice how some of the great "trance" players close their eye or just glaze over when they are really hitting it? Santana, Hendrix, SRV, Thompson, Peter Green..... To get in the zone and stay there, it is often helpful to shut down every system bedsides "life support"...get rid of all the distractions...close the eyes and close down the visual computer program...more RAM available for the sonic thought/ear and the immediate hand/tactile translation of the thought. It is so great not to have to look at your hands, and be able to go anywhere on the neck at will to milk the phrases for tone, slides, bending, slurring or whatever.



    As was mentioned, there are plenty of instruments where looking really isn't much of an option: fiddle, sax, trumpet, flute and various winds. Not looking doesn't impede these players, in fact it may actually give them an advantage. I know that I've written 4 or 5 times more original stuff on flute than I ever did in years on mandos. I seem to get much better mental reception from that radio station in stratosphere with flute in hand, and I just go with the flow.

    I guess some of this stuff can sound like a bunch of bunk, until you experience some of it yourself, and it makes more sense.

    Niles H

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  7. #30

    Default Re: To look at the mando or not?

    I agree with you on the winds. Except for my ear/audition, I experience playing winds much differently than everything else: all strings of course; keyboard; even drums and percussion - it's all kinda or pretty much the same, to me .. (Nors have the term slatte/slattenmusikk - instrumental folk music - slatte deriving from the verb "to hit" - referring to plucking or striking of the fingers/hand on strings (harps, zithers, mandolins etc) - it's kinda or pretty much all the same .. I strike the keys on my accordions just like that of piano, organ, et al .. it's all a drum. I've explored strings from many angles - the touches on the guzheng, the fine nail work on wire harp and flamenco gtr, the corporeality of doublebass, Michael Hedges gtr...

    ..but winds, it's very much like singing...so consequently it's very easy to sing on them .. as one even shapes the cavities of the face as does a singer when playing, etc . Yes I guess there may be as much affinity with vocal and horns as there is strings and percussion..

    At this stage of the game, I lately play my horns maybe 75% of my playing time. I'm loving free playing - it's so easy to create with horns.



    Last edited by catmandu2; Jan-21-2021 at 12:58am.

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  9. #31
    Registered User Frankdolin's Avatar
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    Default Re: To look at the mando or not?

    I just wanted to add that if I'm performing to a audience I do try and make eye contact with folks. It means alot to them as it does to us if the roles were reversed.

  10. #32
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    Default Re: To look at the mando or not?

    Quote Originally Posted by Frankdolin View Post
    I just wanted to add that if I'm performing to a audience I do try and make eye contact with folks. It means alot to them as it does to us if the roles were reversed.
    You are correct but my nursing home audience is quite forgiving !

  11. #33

    Default Re: To look at the mando or not?

    Oh, I guess I could respond to the question at hand -

    Reiterating what's been said by Niles there and prbly others, being as free as possible is a worthy aspiration - many players see this as a kind of natural pursuit, yielding the benefits mentioned; I'm really into it so I'm with that crowd. I like to move when I play dance forms, so being free is an asset there again..

    But I also will stare at my left hand - playing classical guitar, for example.

    It all depends on what music I'm playing, what I'm trying to convey, who the audience is, etc. We don't look much when playing accordions - there's a thing called "melodeon face" that we try to avoid - I often look down at my instrument to avoid MF

  12. #34
    Registered User Frankdolin's Avatar
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    Default Re: To look at the mando or not?

    The " Face". The one you get when your where you want to be, but it looks like someone has your... hands in a vice.

  13. #35
    not a donut Kevin Winn's Avatar
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    Default Re: To look at the mando or not?

    I only look at my mandolin when I'm really mad at it.....
    "Keep your hat on, we may end up miles from here..." - Kurt Vonnegut

  14. #36
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    Default Re: To look at the mando or not?

    Quote Originally Posted by yankees1 View Post
    You are correct but my nursing home audience is quite forgiving !
    I once saw a great blues duo (guitar and harp/vocals) performing in the village club (like a bar) here in Surrey UK. There were a bunch of late teenagers with various physical and mental challenges staying at a specialist hostel nearby, and they came down for the gig - about 15 of them, in big custom wheelchairs to suit their needs. Their carers put them right in front of the band, who were very experienced pros (the guitarists was Big Jim Sullivan, if UK readers remember him). There were about 30 local guys behind them. They really got into the band, but (carers said) it was mostly the first time they'd been to a gig. They didn't applaud at all after a song - they just made whatever noise they felt showed their appreciation, whether vocal or by banging on something. The band didn't even blink, they just took this in their stride - 'all in a day's work'. They did their stage thing just as they would have done it to any audience. Everyone had a great time - the point being, there are times when looking at the audience seems to matter more than most - this was one of them.

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  16. #37
    Registered User J Mangio's Avatar
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    Default Re: To look at the mando or not?

    When playing as a sideman, I look at my instrument or others in the group, unless the focus is on me, I don't look at the camera or directly at the audience.
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