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Iiada Mandolin Honestly, I can’t tell you much about this instrument. I was at a music festival about 20 years ago and while the bands were changing on stage, the sound man put on an album of a female bluegrass singer singing traditional bluegrass gospel songs. The singing and playing was some of the finest I had ever heard. You must understand, I was in no way a fan of bluegrass music, but this was so wonderful I went running to the soundman to ask who’s music it was. It turned out to be Emy Lou Harris’s Angel Band album. click image for larger view |
The next day I found it in a store and played the thing endlessly for about a week. I was so charmed by the mandolin playing (Vince Gill, as it turns out) that I took my electric guitar (a Yamaha – can’t remember the model) and walked into a local music store that had this mandolin hanging on the wall. The mandolin was selling for a fairly high price (over $1000) but apparently had been there for quite awhile and the store owner was anxious to get rid of it. I asked him if he would do a straight trade for my Yamaha, he said yes and I walked out with this instrument.
Since that time, I’ve hacked away at mandolin. I do play it on my albums but one must not consider me a player. I concieve particular parts and then spend hours in the studio trying to get them right. The end product sounds like I kinda know what I’m doing but that’s just smoke and mirrors.
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I tend to want to pick as far away from the bridge as possible – towards the headstock. The closer you are to the bridge the thinner the sound gets. But as a result my pick was always clicking on the neck of the guitar so I had Darryl Perry scallop the neck from the last half a dozen frets. Click the image for a larger view. |
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For those concerned about the rubber band woven through the strings at the tail piece, that is simply to stop the resonant vibrations of the strings on the dead side of the bridge – sounds cleaner.
-Steve B
