Musings on Mandolins

So, Gentle Readers, I have decided. The time is now. I'm not getting any younger. It is time to pick up an instrument that I have always loved and always wanted to learn how to play -- the mandolin.

Yes, I'm going to buy a mandolin. This mandolin, to be precise: http://adirondackguitar.com/lefty/stagg/m20.htm -- now, please no comments on how terrible this thing is. I know it sucks. And I'm buying it anyway! That's what a $150 mandolin is for. It's a student instrument, designed specifically to get your feet wet. Nevertheless, I have read review after review in which people say they are stunned and surprised at how good this Stagg sounds, despite the cost and the cheap materials. And if it is as good as all that, I can use it as a cheap beater that can handle going to historic outdoor, all weather re-enactment camps  . . . and I will also need something to play and learn on while I save up for this one, the mandolin that I have fallen in love with: http://adirondackguitar.com/lefty/morgan_monroe/mmr_1.htm


Please note the price differential. $1100 vs. $150. And the exceeding long list of materials and Stuff To Note with the Morgan Monroe mando, lol! (also the fact that this Morgan Monroe is also more money than a single one of my mortgage payments . . .)

Now, of course, the question on everybody's mind is, I'm sure, why a mandolin? Why two mandolins? And aren't you happy with your whistles and your guitar? Well . . . here are the answers that I've come up with.


A) I have loved the mandolin ever since I first heard it when I was a kid. But people have told me, also since I was a kid, that I would never be able to play stringed instruments. Obviously they were wrong, since I am learning the guitar just fine. What else were they wrong about? I admit it, I'm curious now! I love mandolin tunes, and bluegrass music, and Celtic music with a mandolin in the arrangements. Why not make a relatively cheap investment and see if I can play it? If I can, great, time to move up. If it turns out that I can't, well, at least I tried.

The other consideration is that a mandolin is more likely to be found in my historic re-enactor camp than a guitar. Back in the 17th century, guitars were for nobles, and not just any nobles, but wealthy ones. The Top of the Heap. They were rare, wildly expensive instruments. And they ALL looked like 3/4 parlor or classical guitars, not the modern full sized rock-and-roll dreadnought -- which is what I have.

My re-enactor group strives to be as historically accurate as possible, from what we wear to how we look, and I agree with that entirely. There is no point, so far as I'm concerned, to re-enacting history (real, actual, in the past history, not RenFaire type history) if you can't find the truth of it, whatever that truth happens to be. And the truth of the matter is that my regiment is made up mostly of dirt poor Scottish Highlanders, with the occasional middle or lower class Lowlander, Irishman, German, Swede, or Englishman in the mix. And nobody, but nobody, is wealthy enough to own a guitar. Not even the officers, who typically come from better backgrounds. Certainly neither of my characters! I've been getting away with it this past season because one of my characters owns a pawn shop, and she's been able to have a lot of stuff that the rest of the regiment wouldn't, everything from ready cash to pocket watches, to glasses, from pewter plates to silk skirts. And a guitar. All out of the pawn shop inventory! Her character helps bring balance to the Force, as it were, 'cause it helps our patrons see a well-rounded camp, not just the poor side of life. But I'd like to have something to play that doesn't look quite as modern as my blue acoustic dreadnought 6-string.

B) Yes, I love my guitar. The only way you're getting Babe away from me is to pry him out of my cold dead hands. I fully intend to keep learning, and keep practicing, and even, perhaps, join sessions at pubs and so on, to play modern music, and to do and learn everything that I can't do in the 17th century. I am female. And I rock. Well, I am going to rock, in the future :) I'm not going to give that up. And hey, I even rock left-handed, nothing like getting the whole 'wierd' trifecta :)

But since I started to learn to play, the question that's been rolling around in my head is, why limit myself to one instrument? Sure, I play the tin whistle, but I don't care enough about it to ever really be a great whistle player. Anyway, simply because of my asthma, woodwinds are never going to be my best instrument. But I love the mandolin. I love the sound of chop chords. I love all those strings, and I want to learn *why* they're all crammed on there. I love the look of a mandolin. I love its beautiful, sweet sound. And I want to expand my musical repertoire. Why limit myself? Why not play ALL the instruments that I love? I mean, The Chief Fool plays guitar and piano, and she's recently begun to show some interest in the mandolin too . . . another friend of mine plays the guitar and the mandolin. One of my musical heroes plays literally a dozen different instruments, or more. I know whole bands who have 4 or 5 people and 20 instruments! Why stick with one? Other people do it, so, why not?

C) why two? Because apparently, or so I have learned in my mandolin theory studies, what a mandolin is made of and how it is made really DOES make that big of a difference. Mandolins are apparently significantly less forgiving than other wooden instruments, like guitars, when it comes to how they're put together.  Craftsmanship and the right materials really do determine the playability and the sound. Since I (eventually, given that I can actually play the cheapie) want the best mandolin I can get, that means paying for it. It's not like my guitar, which was only $500 and yet sounds just as good, almost, as some of the $2500 + guitars out there. (And can I just go off on a tangent here and say that I am continually, truly amazed at just HOW good my guitar's sound is? It matches perfectly with a custom $3200 guitar, for example, and holds its own in any folk recording. Any. And I only paid $500!!!)


Adirondack Guitar, the independent music shop where I found these lefty instruments, has a layaway program, which I am seriously considering. 20% down, then weekly or monthly payments. No interest. Gotta save for a canvas wall tent first, though, gotta have someplace to stay when re-enacting! However, the wall tent and all its accoutrements is a grand total of $375, so that shouldn't take too long. Given what I can put towards it every month, the timing should work out quite nicely.

As of this moment, the plan is to save this winter and summer for the tent, to have it by mid August of 2011. Then, put the deposit down for the Morgan Monroe in Sept of 2011, and finish paying for it over the next 12 months, and finally have it shipped to me in Sept. of 2012. That's about right, anyway, in terms of being a beginner at the mandolin, and not knowing enough etc to even make it necessary to have a good one for a while. I think a year to pay down the layaway is a reasonable time frame. And certainly, spending a year with my Stagg will give me the time I need to establish whether or not I will even need a good mando in the future.


In theory, I will have the basic beginner's Stagg instrument itself by (or around) Christmas of 2010, yes, this Christmas, in a few weeks. Straps and tuners and so on will come later. And I can find basic left-hand instructions on line, I've already looked. I am also in the process of finding a good luthier to 'set up' my Stagg, apparently this one really needs it in order to sound at all decent.I suppose I could do it myself, learn a bit of basic luthier skills, and save myself some money. There are instructions for that too, online! And I'd rather learn how to do it on a cheap instrument, rather than one that's more than a house payment.

I am excited about this. It just goes to show, one of the benefits of choosing 'can' over 'can't'.