I’m mostly curious as to whether I’m the only mando player here.
I’m kind of curious as to whether there are any bluegrassers at all on the boards, actually.
But this thread is mostly about mandolin, specifically electric mandolin.
Does anybody have any experience with them? I found a Fender FM-60E electric mando on Ebay, and had to order it. It’s a semi-hollow electric (not acoustic electric) with twin single coil pickups and tone and volume pots, and a phase switch.
The coolest thing about it is that it’s got 5 single strings, instead of 4 courses of two. (Fender also made a 4 course version, the FM-61SE.) I’m really looking forward to playing with it, as I’m very comfortable on electric guitar as well. I played jazz and rock for years, and I think it’s going to be pretty neat transferring electric style playing into a mandolin framework. It should be fun tackling some violin concertos too.
So let’s talk mandolin, people. Unless I’m the only voice in the wilderness, in which case please excuse me as I sit in my cave and play with my new toy.
I bought a mandolin about a year ago (A-style). And an instructional video. I haven’t made much progress in learning to play, though. I love the mandolin and bluegrass instrumentals. When it comes to vocals, though, I prefer the stylings of Chris Thile and his cohorts to the more traditional bluegrass vocals.
I got a mandolin as a Chrismas present four years ago. I wanted a banjo, but I went for the mandolin since the strings are tuned the same as the violin (which I play). I have no problems with the left hand business, but I can’t figure out picking for the life of me. I’ve never played guitar. I need to find some lessons somewhere.
My roommate, a cellist, also has a mandolin. A few nights ago we had a mandolin suck-fest where we desperately tried to play stuff. It was fun in a futile sort of way.
I’ve played mandolin as a secondary instrument for about 8 years now. I pretty much treat it like a percussive acoustic guitar with the occassional (obligatory?) tremolo. The first thing song I learned how to play on it was The Smith’s “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”.
I love **Nickel Creek ** and when the “Transcribed Score” songbooks came out for their albums, I ordered them both. I was a little disappointed to find out that transcription had guitar tab but no mandolin tab.
The first time I played in public was at my sister’s wedding. She wanted Lonestar’s song “Amazed” played when she walked down the aisle. I arranged the song for piano and mandolin and had the piano part recorded to a disc in the keyboard and played the mandy live.
My favorite mandolin riff and solo in a song has probably got to be **John Hiatt’s ** “Cry Love”.