maxvintage
Poster Extraordinaire
New to me anyway. Picked up an F style mandolin branded "austin" on Craigslist. $100.
Backstory: I got interested in Irish music and decided that rather than try to adapt my jazzbo and blues guitar stylings to Irish music, I'd learn something completely new. Lots of Irish music types don't want any rhythm instrument at all, and two guitars are way worse than one at an Irish music session. So I started on the flute. I got to be sort of OK after 2.5 years, to where they would let me play at local pub sessions.
But then at my job, because of the unmentionable, everybody and me are all wearing masks. Employer requirement. Hmm in one world I'm wearing a mask indoors, and so is everybody else, but then in another I'm going to a crowded pub and playing a flute, aerosolizing my mistakes. I thought "what could I play that would not have a huge learning curve and I could play with a mask?" Voila! Mandolin. Mandolin is towards the edge of acceptable to irish music traditionalists.
There's the mando with the flute
Irish music types prefer the "A" style mandolin, ideally an oval hole, rather than the F, which is the bluegrass player's ideal. I don't know diddley about mandolins aside from what i just typed. It's been a fun challenge trying to play melodies I know on the flute on an instrument that's tuned like a fiddle. Wait why is that note an open string?
The Austin is an example of the miracle of modern instrument production. It's amazingly not bad. The finish is not to0 thick, it stays in tune reasonably well, the action is easy. The bridge is a little roughly cut but perfectly serviceable. It dented the top pretty significantly though. so putting a replacement bridge on there would be hard. Two of the tuner bushings aren't seated well in the holes. Tailpiece cover is missing. But compared to the sort of terrible instrument that were available fro beginners back in the day? it's a miracle.
My local store has a bunch of old Gibson and Martin A style mando's in stock--I think I'll be checking them out.
Backstory: I got interested in Irish music and decided that rather than try to adapt my jazzbo and blues guitar stylings to Irish music, I'd learn something completely new. Lots of Irish music types don't want any rhythm instrument at all, and two guitars are way worse than one at an Irish music session. So I started on the flute. I got to be sort of OK after 2.5 years, to where they would let me play at local pub sessions.
But then at my job, because of the unmentionable, everybody and me are all wearing masks. Employer requirement. Hmm in one world I'm wearing a mask indoors, and so is everybody else, but then in another I'm going to a crowded pub and playing a flute, aerosolizing my mistakes. I thought "what could I play that would not have a huge learning curve and I could play with a mask?" Voila! Mandolin. Mandolin is towards the edge of acceptable to irish music traditionalists.
There's the mando with the flute
Irish music types prefer the "A" style mandolin, ideally an oval hole, rather than the F, which is the bluegrass player's ideal. I don't know diddley about mandolins aside from what i just typed. It's been a fun challenge trying to play melodies I know on the flute on an instrument that's tuned like a fiddle. Wait why is that note an open string?
The Austin is an example of the miracle of modern instrument production. It's amazingly not bad. The finish is not to0 thick, it stays in tune reasonably well, the action is easy. The bridge is a little roughly cut but perfectly serviceable. It dented the top pretty significantly though. so putting a replacement bridge on there would be hard. Two of the tuner bushings aren't seated well in the holes. Tailpiece cover is missing. But compared to the sort of terrible instrument that were available fro beginners back in the day? it's a miracle.
My local store has a bunch of old Gibson and Martin A style mando's in stock--I think I'll be checking them out.
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