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Thread: whyd you start?

  1. #1
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    Question whyd you start?

    havent seen a 'why did you start playing thread' yet....not sure if there is one :/ but yea why did yall start playing? my storys a bit long but here it goes. i was on youtube listening to a very talented ukulele player/singer julia nunes: http://www.youtube.com/user/jaaaaaaa and wanted to make videos like hers i mean i sing and all why not right? then i reliezed i dont play any instruments and if i just sang thatd be pretty lame :/. so off to craigslist i went and no ukuleles.... so i just started lookin through the instrument section in general and saw the word MANDOLIN had no idea what the heck this thing was so i click and looked at the page thinking 'ahh ive seen this before just didnt know what to call it' so i went back to youtube and typed in 'mandolin covers' and found a cover of one of my favorite songs 'kids' by mgmt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goHVA21BhYM so on the 19th i will go pick my mandolin up and start playing

    so whats your story?

  2. #2
    Registered User Eric Hanson's Avatar
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    Two Names:
    Sam Bush
    Chris Thile
    Both of these guys made me want to learn how to play. I still can't play any of their stuff, but I now have a much wider respect for them and many other very gifted mandolin players.
    Make sure to look at other threads where you can find a good starter mandolin and the benefits of having it set up by a professional.
    BTW Welcome to your newest addiction, affliction, and all out obsession. It will take you to places that are wonderful.
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  3. #3
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    although thats not the style of music i like i do agree he is VERY talented!

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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    Grissman via the Greatful Dead.
    Pen

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  5. #5

    Default Re: whyd you start?

    greetings covernment-

    Mando's great, but don't give up on uke!...it's too much fun

    (pssst.... http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/group.php?groupid=117 )

  6. #6
    Horton River NWT Rob Gerety's Avatar
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    I played guitar for years but there are too many guitar players.
    Rob G.
    Vermont

  7. #7
    fretboard roamer Paul Merlo's Avatar
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    My father was / is a folk musician and I used to love listening to him pick an old Concertone bowlback he found for $15 when I was a kid. He also had a guitar and tenor banjo too. My own musical journey started playing punk rock guitar in high school, yet somehow became a Dead/jamband fan in college (cough cough).

    Anyway, I wanted to somehow mix up those jam sessions with 4 acoustic guitars and borrowed an old Lotus A-style from a friend who had long since quit. I picked up a beginner chord book and was off. I had so much fun with the mandolin that I immediately went and bought my own mandolin when my friend wanted his back. Now here I am a dozen years later and my mandolin is my 1 1/2 year old son's favorite instrument for me to play to him.

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    I used to listen to speed metal. Now I listen to bluegrass... because it's FASTER!

  8. #8

    Default Re: whyd you start?

    Hubris.

    Oh and ignorance.

  9. #9
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    Doyle Lawson's break on "Walk, Don't Run" off of Mike Auldridge's "Blues & Bluegrass" recording. Seriously. I didn't even know what a mandolin was but, if it could sound like that, I knew I wanted to play one. The funny thing was, there were two mandolin players on that record and I mis-read the credits. I thought it was John Duffey. I became a huge Seldom Scene fan and learned everything I could by listening to him. I tried to play his breaks and based my whole style on his. Years later I was idely glancing at the sleeve and realized my mistake. I should have been listening to Lawson! Actually by that time I was, as well as Grisman, Bush, Monroe, Wakefield, Jethro and many others who became major influences.

  10. #10
    Registered User Ivan Kelsall's Avatar
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    When i first heard Bluegrass music,it hit me so hard,there was no way NOT to want to play for me.
    I began playing Banjo,then Guitar & finally got around to Mandolin after 40 years. It's a total blast all over again !,
    Ivan
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  11. #11
    Peace. Love. Mandolin. Gelsenbury's Avatar
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    I started playing because a guitarist friend used gentle persuasion for years to encourage me to learn an instrument, and I didn't fancy guitar. Why mandolin exactly? I knew I liked the sound from various musical styles including folk, folk-rock and Renaissance, I fell in love with the instrument when I saw it in the shop, and it was cheap! I only found out later that many people pay several hundreds or even thousands for mandolins, and that it's most strongly associated with bluegrass. I'm German living in England, bluegrass wasn't on my radar.

  12. #12
    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    Loved folk music I heard on AM radio -- Kingston Trio, Highwaymen, Tarriers etc. Bought a banjo at college. Got a guitar (Denver Folklore Center, H. Tuft, Prop.) in the army. Liked bluegrass, thought it might be fun to start a band with my brother and a banjo-playing friend. Found a Gibson A-1 in my grandfather's attic, about 1970. Climbed into the handbasket, and been rollin' downhill since.
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    Back in the mid `80's I used to listen to the AM superstation KXEL out of Waterloo, Iowa if I was driving late at night. They would play Bluegrass Gospel albums and cuts off albums, and I loved it. Already being a classical guitarist & bassist, I thought I would check out the mandolin because that's what I was drawn to when I'd hear Bluegrass. Picked up some A model, an Epiphone I think, and started playing the melody to hymns on it at church while a buddy of mine would play the classical guitar.

    Then one night I was taping the Bluegrass show on KXEL, and they played this haunting mandolin instrumental. It wasn't Bluegrass but sounded from long ago and ghostly, with birds and voices. It became my favorite song of all time. They never said who played it. Found out years later it's "My Last Days on Earth" by Bill Monroe. Still have that tape with radio static!

    Now I play F-5's at Bluegrass Jams, go to Bluegrass Festivals and plan on getting a band together to do Bluegrass Gospel & instrumentals this summer!

  14. #14
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    A friend who play guitar encouraged me as an adult to learn to play an instrument. I've always loved music and while volunteering at the Philly Folk Festival in 2000 or so I sat right over Chris Thile's shoulder while he and Matt Glaser jammed. I ordered a mandolin b/c everyone played guitar and I'm ornery that way. Once I found mandolin music the potential for it really opened in my ears and it is my musical voice now.

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    Registered User Malcolm G.'s Avatar
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    Mandolin solo on Rod Stewart's Maggie Mae. Just couldn't get it to sound the same on guitar.
    Malcolm Grundy from Montreal

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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    I had a weekly gig in college playing solo guitar for the first half and accompanying a violinist/fiddler the second half. I saw a cheap Polish or Czech mandolin hanging in a shop in Austin and I picked it up. I used it on the gig, playing tunes out of O'Neill's Music of Ireland book with the fiddler. Several mandolins later I have a handmade instrument done by a guy not too far from where I live and work. In between I've done some recording and performing on mandolin in various styles. Picked up some bluegrass along the way, of course. I hope to "master' some unaccompanied Bach pieces before it's all said and done. Guitar is still my main instrument, though.
    BTW, I think that first mando came apart at the seams after a few years, I'm not sure where it wound up. But it was good enough to get me out of the blocks.

  18. #18
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    One word:

    Frank Wakefield.

  19. #19

    Default Re: whyd you start?

    Because sometimes it's not about the guitar, fiddle, or b@njer.

  20. #20
    Registered User Dan Hoover's Avatar
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    saw a Dawg and it spoke to me...
    plus i grew up on a Zep 4 lp...
    "Enjoy every sandwich." Warren Zevon

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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    Yank Rachell: always loved listening to him flying around freely on mandolin inside the songs of Sleepy John Estes... Finally decided to try the instrument myself...

  22. #22
    Registered User jim_n_virginia's Avatar
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    Quote Originally Posted by covernment View Post
    'why did you start playing
    For the chicks and the money!

  23. #23
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    Because the bowlback looked so cool. And, contrarian that I was, it wasn't a guitar.

    I never heard recorded mandolin music till many years after I had been playing.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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    funny....

  24. #24
    Registered User Randi Gormley's Avatar
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    Yeah, what Jim Richter and Jim-in-Virginia said ... although I'd substitute hunky males for the "chicks" part. actually, I first started playing it because my parents bought me one (what can I say? it looked like a lute hanging in the store and they asked what I wanted for my birthday .... ), then taught myself how to play it right before I graduated from college because I had it; my husband and I used to play duets (he's a guitarist) when we were dating and we drifted into Celtic music because that's the only book we had with both simple melody and chords. We've never looked back. It wasn't until I found out about the Cafe from a mandolin-playing co-worker (bluegrass) that I realized how huge the mandolin world actually is, and I've been an eager observer ever since.
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  25. #25
    Registered User Jim MacDaniel's Avatar
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    Default Re: whyd you start?

    Quote Originally Posted by jim_n_virginia View Post
    For the chicks and the money!
    Uh, then I hope you started out married and rich.
    "The problem with quotes on the internet, is everybody has one, and most of them are wrong."
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