[chinmusic]

1. How many mandolins do you own? What kind are they?
Just one- a Collings MT with a gloss top. Probably more mandolin than I'll ever need but that certainly won't stop my GAS.

2. How did you get started playing mandolin?
Sheer curiosity. I like the sweeter tones that they can produce in chamber music, orchestral pieces and folk music. So, when I graduated from college, I pooled all of the monetary gifts into my first mandolin.

3. What was your first mandolin? Do you still own it?
A Kentucky KM 805, which was a fine instrument that got me into my first year of playing and then was sold to help fund my current mandolin.

4. What style (or styles) of music do you play on mandolin? Where do you use it? (In a bluegrass band, at church, in a country band, at home strictly for fun, etc.)
As with anything, I tend to make instruments do what they ought not to do and so I play a lot of what I call "folk pop" using the mandolin in equal parts for its percussive qualities, as well as its melodic ones. It's also been a huge boon to my songwriting, allowing me to form and shape chords that I would've never come across on the guitar.

5. Who are your favorite mandolin players? Do you try to play like them, play any of their compositions, or do you just admire one or more aspects of their playing?
Because I'm a young punk, Chris Thile was the "gateway drug" to the mandolin world for me, though I now find him to be a bit garish. My tastes tend to be simpler players and a few stick in my mind right now, as I've been listening to them a lot- Cahalen Morrison of Morrison and West, Ben Hodges of The Austin Steamers and Alex Rueb of The Lost Pines.

I look forward to more answers! Thanks for the great thread!