Friday, April 4, 2014

The Mandy Fan Club


Last night I had both band and choir practice, because our band has a gig tomorrow and that’s when everyone could get together. At choir practice at the OTHER church, I started reflecting on music’s place in my life. For example, I like to sing harmony, so then why am I a first soprano in that choir? Kathbert says it is because I can hit a high A reliably. Then I thought about how I went from making up harmonies on the mandolin to just playing the chords, which happened around the same time my blog became less creative. Am I just lazier now and would rather play some chords already written out for me rather than invent a harmony? Am I more humble now and would rather be in the background? Did my change in playing habits affect my perception of myself as less important, or did the change in perception come first and I adapted my playing to match my new self-perception? If I play the violin more, will I return to feeling more self-important? After all, there are plenty of jokes about violinists’ big egos but none (that I know of anyway) about mandolinists’ big egos. Come to think of it, I don’t know any mandolin player jokes, but plenty of banjo player ones. The fun thing about playing the mandolin, especially my antique tater-bug mando (or, more elegantly, my Neapolitan style mandolin), is that people wonder what it is and they always come up after gigs to ask me questions: What is that instrument? Where did you get it? (It’s a family heirloom.) Is it hard to play? (No.) Are you the one doing the fancy trills? (Yes.) It’s like having groupies, only they aren’t really my groupies since they are more interested in the instrument. It’s like my mandolin has its own fan club! I call her Mandy, but people say that is a silly thing to call such a beautiful old instrument. Still, doesn’t the Mandy Fan Club have a nice ring to it?

Famous Hat

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