whyd you start?

[STEViE Simpson]

I'm a bass player originaly but I bought my old Harmony off a mate for thirty quid because it fitted on my motorbike. I use it still when I gig at bike rallies over here in the UK an' out in Europe, it's a lovely instrument an' it's given me a musical career. I can't grumble at that....



An' a photoshoot for 100% Biker magazine over here with my customised '73 Triumph Bonneville....

[Patrick Costello]

I have been playing banjo and guitar for a big hunk of my life. Last year the hearing issues I have been dealing with for as long as I can remember finally got to the point where I was almost completely deaf. Rather than get depressed I started teaching myself the fiddle and mandolin.

It was fun exploring the two instruments mainly by feel rather than sound - and it kept me occupied enough to take my mind off of the pain and frustration.

Now that I can sorta-kinda hear again (I had a Baha implant installed at Johns Hopkins - more on that here: http://www.thebluegrassblog.com/patr...gains-hearing/) I am still messing around with the mandolin. In fact, a few weeks ago one of my banjo students in the UK made me a solid-body electric mandolin http://dailyfrail.com/2010/01/11/i-s...olin-electric/

-Patrick

[fishtownmike]

What turned me onto mandolin was Led zeppelin and the song battle of evermore and I also thought Rod Stewart's Maggie may was pretty cool. I look back now and realize they were quite simple songs but they were my first intro to mandolin...Mike

[GRW3]

Mandolin is just my current passion in stringed instruments. I played in the band through high school and college and music was part of my life. Trombone (for me) was meant to be played in a band so, sans band, I stopped playing. A girlfriend had a guitar, she taught be few chords and I bought my own. Wish I had played continuously since then (~'78) but I still consider that the start.

[Bertram Henze]

Stevie, ever considered posting that 2nd pic in the "Women with Mandolins" thread?

[STEViE Simpson]

Stevie, ever considered posting that 2nd pic in the "Women with Mandolins" thread?

Didn't know there was one, new here. [:{D>

[billkilpatrick]

GDAE ... in terms of sound and music theory, a eureka moment.

[billkilpatrick]

An' a photoshoot for 100% Biker magazine over here with my customised '73 Triumph Bonneville....

i thought life was going to be like this ...

[STEViE Simpson]

i thought life was going to be like this ...

It's not like that every day Bill [:{D>

[billkilpatrick]

It's not like that every day Bill [:{D>

me neither ... just the weekends.

[darthouellet]

One day at school (I'm a elementary school teacher who teach music in high shcool), I was wandering why the kids couldn't understand the basics of playing guitar .... It was pretty darn easy for me and, well I was in total darkness. So I decide to put myself in their shoes and finally understand them. So I looked for a new instrument to "feel" the way they do. So I went to youtube and started to look for something crazy and funny... That's when I saw Mr. Ritcher playing voodoo child... That day I remember that I bought a handmaid mandolin (wich i never played with) in Mexico 14 years ago. That's how it all begins. ( btw sorry for my poor english, I'm...... not english lol)

Josh

[flatland-mando]

The portability and instant-access of a mandolin attracted me. Eight ringing strings on an impossibly skinny neck ( & I got chubby fingers). I started with one book, including a CD, then discovered the rich mine of mandolin playing on YouTube.
Yesterday I went to the airport to ask if a Mandolin hard-case containing my instrument could be carrry-on. The guy at the check-in line with time on his hands said "could he see it".... and then "could you play it". Reluctant though I was I got through a strumming -- chording section of "Greenland Whale Fishery." Didn't stumble & the staff at airport seemed pleased. I walked out of there feeling like, well... a frikken' MUSICIAN. Its the little (big)things that count.

Thanks, I like the thread.

[300win]

Picked up my first mandolin in '67 after starting on guitar and banjo in '65. Ever since '68 the mandolin is still the instrument I love to play the most, and is the one I understand more than the other two, although I still pick around on the guitar some and the banjer. Like most of the rest of us I have two really fine mandolins, and would not mind having another couple that are as good. But I have two guitars, one of which is my dad's old D-35 Martin, and I have a banjo, but will be getting another of those as soon as I can from a friend who builds 5-string necks and puts them on old Gibson TB pots. makes a great banjo, not as heavy as a standard because of the lack of a tone-ring. Heck I'm instrument poor like many others on here. But I'd rather have a great instrument than a new car anytime.

[Denny Gies]

Started playing guitar then ended up in a band that had 3 guitars. Went to the mandolin, and glad I did, to provide some more flavor to the band. The second best decision ever made.

[brianf]

I played guitar, dobro, banjo and fiddle in various jams, for years. Finally, there were four of us, and a mandolin was needed. Well, I thought, "How hard can that be, since I once played the fiddle?"

So, I sent to JC Penney, and bought a mandolin, with cardboard case and built-in electric pickup with two controls, all for $75.00. It turned out to be a great sounding instrument, with plenty of punch, and I soon found that picking and bowing are two different animals. The high tension and stiffness of the mandolin strings makes it respond differently to the pick, compared to a guitar or a banjo.

I finally reached a very mediocre skill on it, as with the other instruments. I never did know what brand it was, but it served well.

[Dobe]

Banjo was my 1st, then guitar, then

Tim O'Brien

Sam bush