I’m probably getting the Kala KA-15S (pic below). Seems like the best option for a beginner!
Due to shipping constraints and prices to Lebanon from the USA, I went the other way and ordered this uke from aliexpress.com
KAKA
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):
Next on my list is the Godfather theme, Hallelujah (Jeff Buckley)
Needless to say I’m really enjoying it.
