MAN-dolin... submitted by Dave

A couple of years ago, I got all excited and talked about buying a mandolin.  I thought I might/maybe/could play it.  Like our national leadership at the time, my thought process and its outward manifestation had no connection to the fact-based world.   At the confluence of dogged optimism and very little musical experience was found a hopeful and fertile place offering no proof that I couldn’t.  Barb, being a good sport, a solid musician and an enabler of the arts, went out and procured one.  We now had a mandolin.   

Shortly after the purchase the farm began consuming all of my time.  Hanging on it’s stand, the mando developed a little swirling vortex into which my children were quickly and happily sucked.  They are now well on their ways to mastering the little stringed thing.  My daughter, a mando force, sits in on sessions at The Barley House and my son has an uncanny ability to play anything without really trying... by ear... scary good. 

I’m not being humble when I say that all of their musical talent comes from their mother.   

I am now taking lessons but have so little native talent that I make Steve Martin’s character in “The Jerk” look like, like, I don’t know, someone with real musical talent.  By the way, trying to do what Steve Martin did in that movie is hard, and takes real musical talent, unless you’re a natural like me. 

My instructor, a fabulous musician and kind, patient teacher, exhorts me during my lessons to tap my foot and make a down stroke on the mando as a way of keeping track of where I should be in the music.  I’m a reasonably athletic person, good hand-eye coordination, the whole bit, but this simple command causes my brain to freeze in horror and my hands to clench as we watch my foot sputter out a pathetic quasi-rhythmic tattoo.  All music, scratch that, noise production ceases at this point… I’m that lame.

But I love it.  I’m reminded of when I was fresh out of graduate school and had taken my first job.  I was an Area Coordinator for residence life at a little private university in Texas… the one that is going to host a new presidential library.  Interestingly enough, the university hosts a major seminary for the denomination which is part of its name.  My job required supervising the staff for 1200 freshmen students and most of my hall directors were ministers-in-waiting, an unswervingly nice and competent bunch of people...  really a joy with whom to work.  Here’s the connection. One of my hall directors loved to sing, but he was awful.  He freely admitted that he sang like a hinge, but he wasn’t going to let something as unimportant as a lack of ability stand in his way. He loved to sing. Watching him sing, not listening to him, was really a joy. I carefully tend to this memory and it motivates me to carry on.  To the chagrin of all around me, I keep plunking.

I’m not alone in my appreciation for the mandolin.  Many other middle aged men also feel compelled to play the mandolin.  It looks like a urologist’s waiting room whenever mandolin based events take place.  There are definitely women and children, but their numbers are dwarfed by the guys. 

Why the interest to middle aged men?  Is it the size of the instrument?  A mando is small and portable.  Maybe we’re all tired of being mules. We all know that the only reason women keep us around is for our ability to lift and carry heavy objects or maybe open the occasional jar.  So maybe we’re tired, and we can carry the mando.  But there are smaller instruments.

Or maybe it’s some developmental stage, an exploration of the nurturing side of our masculinity.  A mandolin is held as a baby might be held, close to our bodies, cradled with our right hands and supported at the head with our left.  It’s a soothing, comforting pose.  And big bonus, a mandolin doesn’t cry all night or as in my case, the crying stops when I put it down.

Perhaps like its cousin the violin, it’s a versatile instrument able to bridge multiple musical genres easily.  Klesmer, classical, folk, bluegrass, rock or pop all fit into its range. What other instrument shows up in Led Zeppelin, Doc Watson and Jimmy Buffett tunes and has a number of orchestras dedicated solely to it.   Just for grins, Google “mandolin orchestra” and check out the number of cities that have them.

For me, there is nothing quite as happy as the music made by two well played mandolins.

I’m still just an appreciative audience member, but I’m learning, and that may be the most important reason of all.