Snow and mandolins

Forgetting I had taken Wed and Thursday off, I had told Nate at Finger Lakes Guitar Repair that there was no hurry on the mandolin because I would never make it to Ithaca before the weekend anyway. Once I realized I was missing three full days to noodle around on it, I gave myself a V-8 bonk to the forehead.

But yesterday the phone rang and it was Nate letting me know the mandolin was finished! I said I'd be right over, but of course the cat facility sucked me in for a heavy cleaning and I was a half hour late. Luckily he was helping someone else.

Having my own crazy space (the cat facility), it's always rather fulfilling and relaxing to wander into someone else's. Finger Lakes Guitar Repair is a workshop on King Road is a warm corner full of hardcase guitars waiting for repair or pickup, a workbench, a rack for woodworking planes, another for small handtools, a computer, and countless other wonderful things I failed to register. My little Kentucky sounded and felt so much better. He straightened the neck, lowered the action, replaced the strings, and did some fretwork, handed me some pages of chords, a list of recordings, and a CD of mandolin music, AND sat me down for a 10-minute "what I wished I known when I first picked up the mandolin" session. All for fifty bucks and a set of new strings.

And he had already sent me down to Ithaca Guitar Works to pick up some proper picks and a dampit.

I cannot begin to express how much better the mandolin sounds and feels. When I looked around on the internet and saw every page yammering about proper set-up (a term I had never even heard before), I initially was skeptical about spending money on a $100 instrument. But looking further I realized a LOT of beginners were playing $100 instruments, and if they have a truss rod, there might be quite a bit that can be improved on a neglected instrument. The action on this one was so high it was eating my fingertips up. I wrote that off to me being new to playing...until I picked her up yesterday and touched the strings. What a difference.

Anyway, the mandolin is nothing special, but she's fine until she falls apart, I'm told, and by then I'll know if I'm going to keep playing, and I'll have learned a bit before even thinking about buying a better instrument. After years of picking up tinny guitars (it's no use wondering how a proper set-up would have improved those instruments since I was starving-broke back then anyway) it's nice to have a playable instrument.

Now, of course, I'm noticing the sound of a mandolin every time it crops up on the radio, and I drop everything, grab mine, and try to play along. It's amazing what you don't notice until you have reason to.

I wonder what else I'm missing in life that I just haven't noticed?



And yes, like everything else in my life, I am arranging to have a hanger on the wall so the cats can't knock the mandolin over when it's not in its case. I considered a floor stand, but quickly concluded the cats and dog would knock it flying in short order.