hobby (1)


Playing the Mandolin

A couple of weeks I finally received the mandolin after it spent a month touring the USA as FedEx lost it a couple if times.
I wasn’t able to play it the first couple of days because the tuning wouldn’t stick. Then I learned you should always change the strings whenever you get a new mandolin (or ukulele, or even a guitar). The nice guy at Instruments Garage did a great job at stringing the mandolin and tuning it. And he made it a point to let me know it was a cheap one, unlike the one they had in the shop that cost about an arm and half a leg.
I just wanted to try it anyway, and as one guy put it at a mandolin forum, the first mandolin is not a marriage for life, merely a training instrument.
So I have been training with scales and other techniques like tremolo and cross picking (that’s like nose picking only harder). And for fun, I have been trying to play some songs, mostly Arabic. Here’s a list of the ones I would play almost acceptably in front of a lenient audience (family and close friends):

  • سلم عليها
  • طلي اضحكيلو يا صبيه
  • عايشة وحدا بلاك
  • ع هدير البوسطة
  • حلف القمر
  • مقدمة انت الحب
  • Ho Gaya [Indian song]
  • What God has yoked together [#63]

Next on my list is the Godfather theme, Hallelujah (Jeff Buckley)

Needless to say I’m really enjoying it.

 

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