Birthday Music

Big Muddy M-2 factory 2nd mandolin

I turned 42 yesterday, which as Douglas Adams fans know, is the answer to the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. The day was mellow and rainy. I met a friend for lunch and then took Lucia out to dinner. With my blessing, Bede went to Emerald City ComicCon to sell his art. After all, there was a year in which I had two storytelling gigs on our wedding anniversary, as we decided that we had to go with the opportunities when they presented themselves.

The night before, Bede took me to Dusty Strings to buy a solid-wood mandolin for my birthday. I had thought that a mandolin of my own was many months away, as it is much more challenging to find a decently-good mando than a decently-good guitar an affordable price. This "entry-level" Collings MT A style mandolin, for example, retails at $2700 USD. I had on my wishlist a factory-2nd Big Muddy mandolin that had a few surface blemishes on the back of the neck (which lowered the price significantly), but was structurally sound, beautiful to hear, and accessible to play. Edited to add: I got the Big Muddy mandolin on my wishlist.

One of the highlights of that evening was when the man who helped me choose the new love of my life* demonstrated one of his new favorite mandolins. The other mandolins on the wall reverberated in response. I was reminded of what one of my teachers at guitar camp last summer said: the audience is important because every human is a resonator. He said that you might get a recording that's almost as good as a live performance if you have particularly good acoustics, but there is no comparison to the sound you get with a live audience.

I will wait to post a recording until I become decent enough to listen to. (Ukulele is relatively easy with the "decent enough to listen to"learning curve. Mando is harder!) I'm working on a simple version of an Irish reel called The Musical Priest, and plan to learn Eel in the Sink, too, just so I can say, "Hey, let's play Eel in the Sink" as casually as someone might suggest You Ain't Goin' Nowhere. I dream on....


 *I love all my instruments. Gentle suggestions to let some of them go are met with puzzled frowns until someone politely changes the subject.

Octo-Lin (the mandolin)

A couple of months ago,  I brought home a friend's electric-acoustic mandolin on long-term loan, cleaned it up, and then brought it to the local music shop to have the bridge lowered and the strings restrung. Not long after, my friend Dymphna said, "I must admit, I feel like you've got a new boyfriend who seems nice, but I just don't get."

"What's not to get?" I asked. "I know it's difficult, I know that some of my chords sound like cows in pain, but listen to this pretty D chord!" I played it. She shook her head.

"As a violin player, I feel like it's missing a bow."

I replied, "The mandolin thinks your violin's bow is superfluous."

I started to play ukulele as "cross-training" for guitar. Guitar was my first, best love, but ukulele was cute, accessible, and portable. Songs I composed on the ukulele sounded merry, while songs I composed on guitar sounded like dirges. I've not mastered either instrument and I don't have any unusual musical talents (enthusiasm and desire are my strengths). However, when I started to learn mandolin from the excellent Bruce Emery via his Mandolin From Scratch book, I remembered that, in addition to guitar, mandolin was an instrument my teenage self wanted to learn, but thought was out of reach. I am a long way from playing Led Zeppelin's The Battle of Evermore (my favorite song off of their fourth album), but I can play the New Britain version of "Amazing Grace" in G and D without too many gaps between the barred chords. Eventually, if I am diligent and practice regularly, I will get to melody lines. Someday, perhaps, I can work up to affording a relatively low-priced Big Muddy mandolin. 

In the meantime, I've got the "Octo-Lin," as I've nicknamed this Fender instrument. I bought a gig-bag and ironed on an octopus patch (Eight legs, eight strings!). Bede's banjo playing has progressed, and he is not used to being more skilled on an instrument than me, so now he gets to practice slowing waaaay down for me. We've been working on Jesse James and Gordon Bok's Dillan Bay, and are trying to make White Stripes' Hotel Yorba work, too. Others have already done it, as YouTube videos reveal.

I will end with a little octopus song I made up for a friend who would prefer spiders stay far away from her, and who wishes the children's song about an intrepid wee arachnid were less ubiquitous:

The teeny tiny octopus climbed up the sailboat mast
Down came the storm, but the octopus held fast.
Out came the sun and dried the ocean spray
Then, the teeny tiny octopus jumped down and swam away.

Sometimes, a cephalopod craves adventure.