Mini Athlete Genius

After taking mandolin lessons for a year, I decided to get a new teacher. I thought it would be beneficial to learn from someone new and perhaps learn something new in the process.

My new teacher has a completely different approach to the instrument. While my last teacher was mostly interested in me learning how to play songs (which makes sense), the new teacher is more interested in how I'm playing the instrument.

It's interesting to take this step back a year into learning the instrument. I hadn't been paying close attention to my instrument any more. I was focused on the notes on the page. I didn't know what my hands or fingers were doing, other than whether or not they were hitting the right notes.

After my first lesson with the new teacher, I changed the way I have my strap positioned on the mandolin. I did this so that I could change the way I hold the neck with my left hand. I tend to grip the mandolin like my life depends on it. I have to remind myself that it's not a paddle and I'm not rowing a boat. I can hold it lightly with my thumb and in so doing, free up my four fingers so that they can move easier over the strings.

My first assignment from the new teacher was to simply run up and down the neck, doing chromatic finger exercises. I was no longer playing particular notes and I wasn't playing a scale. I simply ran my fingers up and down the neck, four notes at a time, and in so doing, I watched my fingers completely spaz out. They did this weird spider-like movement above the strings because they weren't familiar with the new positions. You can see what I mean at the beginning of this video:

After running up and down the fretboard all week, my fingers relaxed and hovered over the strings quite calmly. The weird finger splaying had stopped. 

The other thing the new teacher had me do was finger exercises. I now sit at my desk and flip flop my fingers over one another, over and over again. I don't do this on the mandolin. I just hold my two hands together, palm-to-palm, and I flip flop my fingers over each other. 

First I flip flop the index finger of each hand over each other, then the middle fingers, then the ring fingers, then the pinkies. Then I try doing the first and second set of fingers together, the second and third sets of fingers together, then the fourth. Moving on, I try to do the first set at the same time that I do the third set. This is when things start to get messy. Then I do the second set simultaneously with the fourth and now my brain freezes and says, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT NERVES TO SIGNAL BECAUSE I HAVE LOST TRACK OF WHAT FINGERS YOU WANT ME TO MOVE!"

It is at this point that I realize I'm not using nearly enough of my brain on a daily basis. It makes me understand why they say learning a new instrument or doing crossword puzzles — anything the challenges your brain on a daily basis — is a good way of preventing the onset of dementia and mental illness as you age.

THE MANDOLIN IS SAVING MY BRAIN FROM ATROPHY, PEOPLE.

That's right. The mandolin cures Alzheimer's. You heard it right here. Interestingly, my mandolin teacher says he considers musicians "mini-athletes." It makes a lot of sense. You need to work out the muscles of your hands and forearms just as if you were training for a sport. It takes practice. It takes repetition. It takes conditioning. So now I'm finally addressing the physical challenges behind the instrument and I'm actually enjoying it a bit more. 

And now, just for fun, here are some of my favorite bands featuring the mando:

Here's Brandi Carlile, who I'm going to see in concert this month and whose voice was sent down from the angels or knitted by unicorns. I'm not sure which. Maybe it's both:

And a little uplifting diddy from the Lumineers, thanks to the sprightly strings of the mandolin coming in at around :56:

More mando in the weirdly techno-folk Crystal Fighters. They grow on you, I swear:

And last but not least, Chris Thile on the mandolin from the Punch Brothers, who was also named a MacArthur Genius this week. That's right, folks, A MANDOLIN GENIUS. I'm telling you, learning the mandolin will make you both a genius and the world's tiniest ironman athlete. Oh, and could win you $500,000:

Finding the Melody

The other night I posted this picture on Twitter with the caption: "Too many notes."

That was before I had even attempted to play it. As some of you may know, I've recently started taking mandolin lessons. Learning a brand new instrument as an adult can be a humbling experience.

It's also rather embarrassing. I feel completely exposed practicing like a feeble-handed kid in front of my husband. Did I mention he was a music major?

I must be a glutton for punishment. Or my husband is. He probably didn't expect me to pick up a squeaky hillbilly instrument when he married me. I'm sure I seemed like a normal, northern, cosmopolitan lady.

I've been practicing this new instrument every day, for an hour a day. I practice until my hand aches. I practice until my fingertips burn. I have hardened callouses and the skin peels off. Sometimes I don't feel like playing but I drag the mandolin case out and my sheets of music.

Some nights, when I look at a new piece of music like Gallopede up there, I think I should just give up. There are too many notes. I'll never figure it out. Just who am a kidding, an adult trying to pick up a bizarre musical instrument when I already have more hobbies, activities, children, jobs, and social life than I need.

All of these voices of doubt play through my head and still I sit and stare at the notes. I don't close the book. I don't give up. I want to make music and feel joy in my heart. Even if I sound like a Suzuki Method player doing it.

The only way that's going to happen is if I just get in there and start plucking. Even if I hit the wrong notes. Even if I'm flat. Even if I have to decipher which three notes to play at once, or how to play a dotted quarter note before a triplet or what have you.

The other night after I Tweeted that moment of defeat: "Too many notes," I sat and I started to play through the piece. As I played, I found the melody and the notes were really much simpler than they looked. And I enjoyed playing it.

It's a reminder to me that just because something looks difficult at first, doesn't mean you can't do it. You just have to take it slow. Play it one note at a time and soon you'll find the melody.

Mando et mando.

Note: I wrote this a year ago when I'd just started the mandolin and never posted it. I'm still playing, but not particularly well. Though I must say, looking at the music for Gallopede now is laughable. It looks so easy and those notes look pretty sparsely scattered across the page. 

Writing Is Stupid.

Why is writing such a painful endeavor? Why do people do it? Why do I do it as both a profession and a hobby? Is it because I'm a masochist? But then sometimes we say we love writing. It's our greatest passion. So which one is it? Is it torture or sex?

It's a little bit of both, I suppose. There are moments when you get so lost in writing that it's like you've become one with your god. You've merged with the universe and there is no more "you." But those moments are more fleeting than the moments of you staring at the screen like the empty husk of the damned, wishing you'd chosen some other career or hobby. Anything. Play an instrument. Paint a picture. But pull words out of my ass? What was I thinking?

Anyway, this is just to say I'm procrastinating. I'm supposed to be writing something else entirely. See, look at that. I'm so far gone, I'm writing while procrastinating from writing.

Send help.

Working Mom. Or "How to Suck at Being a Mom."

Ready for school.

My daughter just started preschool and it's triggering a mother lode of guilt. 

Read all about it at my Buddha Mama Sans Drama blog.

Dear Ego: I Just Can't Quit You. Love, Mandy.

Here's a meditation on my enormous ego. Just kidding. It's more of a medium-sized ego. Or is that egotistical of me to say? Buddhists have a lot to say about the ego, or Self, and some folks freak out over the concept of No Self. Here are my thoughts on Self and No Self. And also some thoughts on how socially awkward I am when I see my therapist in public. It's amazing I'm allowed out in public at all.

Ego: The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves.

A Little Something About Big Emotions

Do forgive the paucity of posts. I scrounged around and found an old draft I'd never posted on my Buddha Mama Sans Drama blog. Wrote it a couple of months ago and it felt too raw at the time to share.

I've been writing but not posting a lot lately. Probably means what I'm writing is pretty damned close to my heart. I'll eventually post them as I feel a little less tender and less vulnerable. So here is one now, close to my heart but not quite so close in proximity.

Clouds in the Sky.

More, Por Favor.

My husband and I are at the mercy of a hostile two-year-old girl. She is demanding. She is cranky. She speaks Spanish and we don't. She also speaks some sort of mispronounced toddler talk that all toddlers speak, but when you add in the foreign language, our mystification goes into overdrive. We don't know what the hell she's talking about.

"Más!" she yells from her high chair, banging her bowl on her tray.

"More, please," we say. Because we are patient, older parents we don't El Strangle her.

"Más PAYAYOO!" she hollers and bangs the bowl harder.

"What is she saying?" my husband asks, looking tired and bewildered.

"She said 'Más, por favor."

"'Payayoo' is por favor?"

"Si," I say and hand him another bowl of Lucky Charms. Or "Amaletos de la Suerte."

The reason our daughter speaks a language that neither one of us speaks is because my friend watches Grace while I'm at work. My friend is half-Colombian and she read that children who are bilingual have gigantic, bi-functioning brains which basically turns them into a race of super humans who will take over the world. So my friend speaks to my daughter in Spanish. It has resulted in the trilingual toddler we have today — and much confusion.

When we walk Grace to the park, she is happy to yell, "HOLA!" to the people we pass by on the sidewalk. When she sees the sky she points up at it and yells, "AZUL!" The grass, "VERDE!" And if a red bike happens to speed past us, she is sure to announce, "ROJO!"

When I'm at the park, I am somewhat embarrassed when the other parents hear my tiny dictator yelling, "MAS SWINGS! MAS SWINGS!" or when she points at their child who is wearing a blue shirt and says, "AZUL!" Which actually sounds more like, "ASSHULE!"

"Yes, that IS a BLUE shirt, Grace! Such a nice BLUE SHIRT!" I say and smile weakly at the offended parent, who clearly hates me.

I can never tell if the parent is more put off by the fact that my tiny dictator just called their golden-haired angel an asshole, or that I'm such a pretentious asshole that I'm teaching my child Spanish. They probably think I'm like those parents on The Real Housewives of New York, the couple who spoke to their kids in French and named them something like Jean Jacques and Francois.

Oh my god. People think my husband and I are Simon and Alex!

¡Ay, caramba! 

In addition to Spanish language, Grace is also learning about the Hispanic culture. For instance, one day when I came to pick her up I noticed she was drinking some sort of tan substance in her sippy cup.

"What is that?" I asked my friend. "Is she drinking chocolate milk?" I cocked my head to the side and narrowed my eyes.

"Oh, that!" my friend laughed. "She saw me drinking coffee and she wanted some! She kept trying to drink it out of my cup. So cute! So I gave her some of her own."

"I...uh...she...I'm sorry, what?" I stammered, my mouth hanging open.

"Oh, don't worry! It's decaf!" my friend said, laughing and waving me off with a Colombian flick of the wrist.

Apparently it's normal in Columbia to serve babies shots of espresso. I now expect to pick up my daughter and find her sitting at her tiny table and chairs. Perhaps she'll have a tiny cup of café in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

"Hola, Mami," she'll say and continue speaking in Spanish to her dolls and stuffed animals. The doll is a refugee from Columbia who left her lover there in the hands of a notorious drug cartel. The bear is an ex-pat from France. He writes short stories and freelances for the New York Times. Hello Kitty is here on a study abroad program from Tokyo. She likes the electronic music festival in Detroit and finds the shopping superb.

They all turn and look at me like the rube I am.

"¿Quieres un café, mamá?" she'll ask.

Well, at least she's learning some manners, I'll think as I sit down to have a cup with her friends.