Over the past year, I’ve disappointed myself with how little I have played the mandolin. In 2006 and 2007, I had a voracious appetite to learn and improve. But lately, I let it fall by the wayside while I pursued other things. There are only so many hours in the day. I was becoming a jack of certain trades but certainly no master of anything.
I will probably keep falling in and out of periods of playing mandolin often. But to me, it will always distinguish itself from other stringed instruments in its potential. I’m not sure how, but when I play it, improvised melody seems to flow out of it so much easier than guitar. Writing mandolin-driven instrumentals comes much more naturally for me than any other instrument. I have so many instrumental bits and pieces recorded on my computer, like a notebook full of one or two line poems, begging to be made complete.
I had some free time this afternoon so I put some new strings on my mandolin and was sitting on my bed playing. A tune started coming so I quickly put something together and recorded it using the tiny dot for a microphone on my iMac. Anytime you pen and record a song in an hour and a half, it isn’t going to have reached its potential. But I know that I might not ever come back to it, so why not put it up on my blog for people to hear? It has no title of course. I don’t know how the Album Leaf and Kaki King do it. Titling an instrumental is more difficult than writing it.
