Last week, I while doing my random searches through used musical instruments for sale on CraigsList, I came across a mandolin for $40.00. Eh? Why the hell not. I’m pretty bored at the moment, and I know a little about the instrument. I’ve been playing guitar for over twenty years, so I figured I would at least flatten out the learning curve a bit.
So I picked up my new toy, which ended up being in remarkably good shape. You’re probably thinking “so, you bought a stolen mandolin. Good job.” But, the model only retails for $99.00, the dude said it was just sitting around for a couple years. I took it into my awesome local, country as hell music emporium, and not only did I have the owner personally overseeing the inotation adjustment and re-stringing of the instrument, but the mandolin instructor gave me a few quick pointers and gave me his card so he could email me some chord charts. Solid. And all the work they did only cost me $27.00.
Now that I am all tuned up and have been playing it for a few days, I just started thinking about my choices of songs to learn/figure out. This is one of those little lists that I think about and wonder if it makes me super cool and eclectic, or just a plain goof. Unfortunately, I’m pretty damn sure its the latter. Anyway, to date, these are the songs I currently know how to play (mostly, at least) on the mandolin:
Copperhead Road- Steve Earle
Going To California- Led Zeppelin
The Battle of Evermore- Led Zeppelin
Losing My Religion- REM (I think that this one was just a given)
Fly By Night- Rush
Stonehenge- Spinal Tap
Maggie May- Rod Stewart (c’mon, you know you’d like to play that cool little mandolin solo!)
Rocky Top (shut up)
Lawyers, Guns, and Money- Warren Zevon
I’m trying to learn how to play just like I learned how to play guitar. Backwards. Instead of learning how play and THEN learning songs, I would just learn the songs which in turn would teach me how to play the thing. If you think that sounds confusing, the guitar teacher I had for my first year of playing fucking hated me.
Oh yeah, I’m terrible sorry for the shitty pun in the title.
