1. How many mandolins do you own? What kind are they?
While I appreciate having a variety of voices to choose from, I'm not one to keep more instruments than I can play regularly, so at the moment, my mando instruments are a 1920 Gibson A-model and my 1980 Sobell 10-string cittern.
2. How did you get started playing mandolin?
When I was in college my girlfriend had a plywood mandolin she bought for $6 at a yard sale, and when we'd go on trips, she'd drive while I sat plunking away at it in the passenger seat. I was already a guitarist, and I was fascinated by this dinky little thing that let you reach 7 frets without having to change hand positions. It appealed to my innate laziness.
3. What was your first mandolin? Do you still own it?
I play a number of instruments, and when I was learning, my strategy was to buy something eminently playable as cheaply as I could, to try it out and decide if it was an instrument I wanted to stick with. If I decided it was, then I'd go buy the best I could afford. So, my first mandolin was a 2-point Japanese brand (Aria, I think), that I paid $100 for in 1977. A vintage Gibson A model was next, followed by a 'teens F-4, and eventually custom mandolins by Monteleone and Sobell, all, sadly, gone now. After lying dormant for a few decades, my interest in mandolin has resurfaced with a vengeance, hence my current '20 A-model, and a custom F-4 by Stephen Holst due in October. If the Holst is everything I expect, the A-model may be replaced by an f-hole of some flavor.
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.)
I play mainly Celtic, though I'm revisiting bluegrass & some early 20th century styles like ragtime, old-time & swing. I made a living for seven years as a mandolin player, but even though I still gig regularly on guitar, these days I'm still just woodshedding on mandolin, relearning what I knew, and attempting to adapt some of the features of harp-style fingerpicked guitar (finding melody notes on adjacent strings rather than up the neck, to provide multiple ringing strings) to the mandolin.
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?
David Grisman, Jethro Burns and Mick Moloney were the ones who inspired me initially, and there are lots of great players now (Thile, et al.) that I admire, but if there's any one I'd want to play like, it's Mike Marshall. His touch, taste, the musicality of his solos and wide-ranging musical interests make him, in my eyes, one of the most influential players in the history of the instrument. When I decided to develop a new
Mando & Banjo Week for the Swannanoa Gathering, the workshops I direct, Mike was the first guy I went after, and next week, I'll have him here along with Mike Compton, Don Stiernberg, Seamus Egan, Caterina Lichtenberg, Marla Fibish, Radim Zenkl and a host of banjo and fiddle greats also. Do I have a great job, or what?