I passed by a second hand shop yesterday. In the window, looking longingly at me was a little mandolin. Well, technically I suppose it was a normal sized mandolin, but they are small in comparison to a guitar, whose size I am more used to.
Now there is no way that I can claim that I needed a mandolin. I haven't been waking up in the morning and looking at my blackboard To-Do list, wondering if today would be the day that I can cross "Purchase Mandolin" off it. In fact until yesterday, I had never even touched a mandolin. I certainly had no idea how to play one. But why let a little thing like that end my dreams? Even if there was no dream to end?
So I looked through that window, thought "right, I'm having that", walked right into the shop and demanded, nay, asked politely if I might go about exchanging some of my money for the shiny instrument. And they said yes straight away. Perhaps I should have haggled.
Once I got it home, I had a bit of play, and rapidly realised that it needed tuning. Now since I had no idea how to play the thing, I certainly didn't know how to tune it. Initially I thought it would be just like the top four strings of a guitar. But they are not. It's more like a violin or a fidlle. I know this now, because I had to resort to the internet for tuning instructions. It's tuned now.
My second assumption was that a mandolin would be played the same as a guitar - but again no. Guitar chords don't work on it in general, so I've had to learn some new fingerings. I know 5 whole mandolin chords now! And I have pretty much learnt to do a passable version of "Losing My Religion", everyone's favourite jaunty mandolin-based tune. Not passable in the sense that someone might want to buy a recording of me playing it, or even that they'd wish to be in the same room whilst I played it. Passable in the sense that they'd potentially recognise it and then ask me to stop please.
So although my musical talents are not really growing in any way, I now have two guitars, a mandolin and a harmonica. I probably shouldn't buy any more instruments - I am running out of walls to lean them against (though the harmonica is not much of a problem).
7 comments:
Ah, cool. Was it expensive? Shiny things are always expensive. :) Vivaldi composed a few concertos for the mandolin -- I have always found that strange. Oh and *I* would claim that a man needs a mandolin. Or a musical instrument at least -- in your case at least n>1! It's up there with needing a bosom for a pillow, me thinks. Whether you have one in another matter...
Seemed cheap enough to me (under fifty quid), though I have no idea what Mandolins normally cost!
I've broken a string this afternoon though. Doh!
You definitely have more money than sense. I don't mean this as a bad thing, I wish I had more money than sense. I wish I had more money than shoes. I wish I had more sense than shoes. I'll stop there.
Why thank you, kind stranger. Most gracious of you :-)
I, for one, think it's a perfectly lovely purchase. Not knowing how to play one is hardly an excuse not to get it as like many things, it can easily be learned with a bit of practice.
On the flip side, there are many things people put on or against their walls that cost much more than 50 quid and get no practical use whatsoever, so it could just be a succesful purchase of nifty home decor!
I'd have to agree that under £50 is cheap. We spend more on a night's dinner and drinking!
I bought some new strings today, to replace the one I broke yesterday. Whilst attempting to replace the first broken string, I snapped the replacement. I then just about managed to get a third one attached, though it is something of a bodge job and I have a feeling it may not last long...
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