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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