In my opinion a person should ask permission before handling someone elses mandolin, just as a matter of respect.
Even after that, i'll have no qualms about turning down their request if i think it in the best interests of my mandolin. Someone pointed out that a mandolin is a tool earlier on in the thread and i agree, but, all tools should be handled and treated with respect, I have seen some people do some wicked damage to fine tools and themselves through misuse, ignorance, or stupidity. So, yes, i reserve the right to veto just who uses my mandolin. I am not too precious about it though and i do love to hear it sound from someone elses playing, there are times when, in someone elses hands, the instrument just reveals aspects of itself that might have stayed hidden with your own course of playing. In that sense it can be revealing both of your mandolin and your playing to entrust it to someone else. Stories... with my mandolin, once a friend of mine, a fine blues guitar player, borrowed my mandolin to play the Rory Gallagher number 'Comin to my Home Town'... and he really tore into it, stomping out the beat and horsing into the strings with gusto... it really showed me just how much volume the instrument could give, and, more importantly just how much i had been holding back in my playing... caused me to rethink things somewhat. The funniest example i can think of with regards to a borrowed instrument however was with another friend of mine who had just purchased a spanky new guitar. He had brought it to the local session for the first time, when one of the musicians, who usually played fiddle, asked to play a song with it. My friend relented, assured by the others that the guy could play the guitar as well as the fiddle... what they forgot to add was he plays with a really heavy heavy hand, to the point that he nearly always broke at least one string when playing. When the fiddle player started to bare down hard on those guitar strings, the look of shock on my friends face was priceless, every solid strum was like a body blow to him played out in his expressions... if the beating Rocky takes from Apollo Creed in the first movie could be translated to a music session then it surely played out in my friends reactions as that song was battered out on his his guitar. Ara, but he, the guitar, and remarkably all the strings, survived intact. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Taterbugmando" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/taterbugmando?hl=en.
