I took Spanish in high school and played clarinet in the band. Badly. I think that's true of half of America. The other half took a year of piano lessons. Hola Pablo, donde esta la bibliotheca.
My parents got me a guitar when I was in high school. I thought it would be a good way to impress girls, but I couldn't afford an electric guitar so I played folk music. I'd meet a girl, play her some sensitive tune, and she'd say, "Yeah. But here, let me show you a more interesting way to play that."
They got my younger sister Jo a guitar at the same time. They were just trying to keep her from feeling left out. They even let her sit in on my lessons.
I learned the truth, decades later.
They got Jo a guitar and lessons as "occupational therapy." She'd become left-handed instantly at the age of two when she grabbed a mangle -- a roller iron, for sheets -- and fried her right hand. After a lot of skin grafts, she could use the hand, but guitar lessons would, they thought, help her mobility and dexterity.
They got me a guitar and lessons, too so I wouldn't feel left out.
Today, Jo gets BBC airplay and music royalties from places like Mozambique. My youngest sister, Nan, is a professional singer. That really is her day job. My nephew, David, was named best rock bass player in Dallas. Women, he assures me, throw panties at him when he's on stage. I am the least musical person in my family. When my relatives talk about me, they say, "He's such a nice boy. Too bad he has no talent and can't get a real job."
If you're really, really musical, that's great. Your parents moved to Rochester when you were a kid so you could take piano lessons at the Eastman School of Music. You practiced for three hours after school every day. Worried that you were becoming too one-sided, your mother would tell you you had to go outside and play ... pedal steel.
A few folks are like that, but odds are, you're not one of them. It's more likely that you've had some exposure to music, and you think mandolin looks like it'd be fun. It's easy to carry around: smaller than a bass, lighter than a banjo. Plus, mandolin players aren't a dime-a-dozen, like fiddlers or guitar players, so not as many people will notice that you aren't very good.
At least, those are reasons I started playing mandolin.
When I do meet mandolin players, not only do they practice a lot, they have awesome instruments. They own Gibsons or Nuggets or Pomeroys that cost more than my car. I gave my sisters my guitars, so I play other people's. For most of thirty-five years, I've owned only one mandolin -- a no-name Army-Navy style, which I bought for $135 at a hock shop. My instrument-repair guys, Woodsong's Lutherie, have patched and refinished it so many times that I think the body's mostly epoxy.
Still, people will confess to me that they're worried they aren't musical enough to learn, or they're too old to start playing, or they don't have a good-enough instrument.
They're right.
If, instead of becoming musicians, they'd wanted to become dancers, they'd have started ballet lessons at age five. They have been born coordinated and talented. They'd spend an hour or two a day working out on a ballet bar every day of the week. They'd own a collection of dance shoes. That's what Nuryev and Pavlova had to do.
Me, I go to contra dances.
I show up, find the nearest woman without a partner, and jump in. Kevin Cohen turned to me at one dance we were playing and said, "See that guy over there doing dance stretches? He's participating in one of our shared, cultural mythologies: that contra dancing is dancing. It should be called 'contra walking.' "
I don't ask women to dance because I've watched and seen that they're the best dancers on the floor, I ask them to dance because I think they look interesting, and they're not already dancing with someone else. I don't think hard, I make mistakes, and I talk to my partner while we're swinging.
I have a great time.
She will confess, "This is my first dance," and "I don't know what I'm doing." She'll come in the winter wearing sweaters, have to strip them off and dance in t-shirts. She'll be nervous when she notices I'm dancing barefoot.
"I'm worried I'll step on your feet," she'll say.
"If I cared, I'd wear shoes, wouldn't I?" I reassure her. "I'm just a 'No brain, no pain'-kind-of-guy."
Playing old-time music is just like that. When everyone else in the room plays better than you do, they remember being the new kid on the block, too. They're playing with you because they like to play, too, and you aren't playing with anyone else, and you seem nice enough. They're never going to be David Grisman or Bruce Molsky either.
Try it. You'll like it.
