INSTRUMENTS

I require moderator citation, but I don't think there is a specific thread for any of the blue grass stuff. I'd suggest asking your question here in the guitars and basses and stick "mandolin" in the question maybe?

You've posted about accordion, the bodhran, converting a classical guitar to steel strings and now mandolin. Maybe pick 1 instrument and focus on it. Theres no way you're mastering all the typical folk/country instruments at once, kiddo. Just focus on one, then next year expand your repertoire.

You've posted about accordion, the bodhran, converting a classical guitar to steel strings and now mandolin. Maybe pick 1 instrument and focus on it. Theres no way you're mastering all the typical folk/country instruments at once, kiddo. Just focus on one, then next year expand your repertoire.

Well, yes and no... While I do think it's important to sit-down, shut-up, and focus, I also think it's healthy to exparament with everything, especially when you're bored. So you do you man.

I'm not trying to be a negative nelly, just suggesting some focus. Of you've got A doem maybe proceed to B... once you're looking at C maybe experiment with the rest of the alphabet. Accordion for example will require the OP's full attention.

Mate, if Bridget's from Ireland as her name suggests, I wouldn't be so quick to say "no way!" It's perfectly feasible that she's grown up in a community where all those instruments are in easy reach. The Irish music sessions I used to go to in London pubs always had multi-instrumentalists half my age who could bang out jigs and reels at twice the speed of anything I could deliver and many of them already all-Ireland champions at some instrument or other.

Then again, I'm a perfect example of a Jack of All Trades who spends no more than 7 years learning an instrument before moving on to the next and therefore a master of none; a late starter too, I didn't get to go to school with a tinwhistle in my satchel as used to be (still is?) the practice in Ireland.

I get my mandolin forum fix over here at the Mandolin Cafe

I haven't found a Bodhran Forum but perhaps I just haven't been looking hard enough... there's bound to be one!

Equipboard has lots of great gear guides including a fine mandolin guide here

You'll find a ton of jigs and reels at The Session if that's your thing?

The Equipboard forum here is quite general - there's great advice to be found, especially for recording and music tech and production.

Hope this helps.

Look, I don't know a reel from a jig but if you play a couple bars I'll get it and jump in. It's all music. If you learn an instrument and not an idiom you're wide open. Learning to do a few things right now on one instrument and then leap frogging to the next one is fine until you need to do something else on that first instrument. Maybe it's just the former session player in me rearing its ugly head, but you should really learn 1 instrument well and as much about music as possible before, not just as it relates to that instrument. It will open up those other instruments completely so the learning curve is only muscle memory. It is the way.

If accordion is on your list, start there. You don't back into that one.

Edit: I'm not singling out Celtic Folk musicians. I hear so much of this attitude these days from young musicians. Why are you struggling with your firstrecord? You never learned to do a single one of the tasks required thoroughly and didn'tdig into what makes the stuff you know tick. Why are you great at the blues jam but worthless at the band audition? Same answer.

Being a "negative nelly" is literally your entire personality trait, dude...

Ouch! That's bit harsh!

lol - I'd go with "realist Ronnie".

I'm not one to idolise guitar heroes but if I were to name just one it would be Rory Gallagher. He started playing guitar aged 9 (building on from ukulele) and then, according to wikipedia... "Singing and later using a brace for his harmonica, Gallagher taught himself to play slide guitar. Further, throughout the next few years of his musical development, Gallagher began learning to play alto saxophone, bass, mandolin, banjo, and the Coral electric sitar with varying degrees of proficiency. By his mid-teens, he began experimenting heavily with different blues styles" - by his mid teens! Sure the key wording is "varying degrees of proficiency" but my point would be that it didn't hold him back.

I think it's easier to be an accomplished multi-instrumentalist if you grow up immersed in a strong musical culture - more like growing up bi-lingual rather than learning a second language at school.

My 'instrument' from age 7 to 17 was simply singing in a church choir. I wasn't something I ever considered learning an instrument at the time. I realise now that what friends later perceived as "natural talent" for progressing quickly with instruments wasn't an innate gift, it was 2000+ hours of music and ear training; learning intervals and harmony and suchlike . It's a skill that musicians typically learn hand in hand with their instrument but I don't think a lot of people separate the brain training from the muscle memory aspects, or realise that with the brain training done you have a halfway head start on learning your next instrument.

Learning an instrument and not an idiom

That's a great phrase. It reminds me of the contrasting backgrounds of Yehudi Menuhin and Stéphane Grappelli. Both masters of the same instrument but each in their own idiom.

Where are you from Bridget? Judging by your username I've been guessing there's an Irish connection but with that nation's diaspora you could be from anywhere?

Do you have a favourite instrument and what music would you want to play on it?