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(Don't mind me, just pretend I'm not here)
This year I intend to finally gain some mastery over music - I'm musically illiterate and have played by ear all these years. No more! I've very recently taken up mandolin and have forced myself to play only scales - I plan to continue practicing every day for the next year until the scales fall from my eyes.
Last year on the Front Page was a suggestion to make a New Years resolution to read one entry in peer review a day. That's a resolution that I made but but didn't quite keep. However, I did read some each week and learned lots as a result. This year I'll make the same resolution and hope to do better. I also resolve to make more completely inane comments than ever.
...That's about it. 
Hey! I like your comments. 
Good luck on it all, especially the music. I'm the other way around, I learned to read music and play in a school band for four years and now I've been systematically unlearning it. I take comfort in the instrument having been a French Horn so as to make a good story.
As far as contributing more here, alas I am finding spare time a fleeting memory. 
It's been good year for puns, thanks to you - I certainly hope you have at least the time to keep chucking those in now and again.
See you in PR
Happy New Year to you and yours
And a very Happy New Year to you and yours as well.
And Clear Skies too.
Enjoy those fancy bits and bites of food tonight, especially the hors d'oeuvres. You might want to try those sauted female sheep auricles. You know the 'appy ewes ears!
All the best!
 That's what I'm talkin' about 
in best New York accent:
How do ewes do it?
Good luck on the mandolin playing, pailaway. I can play the mandolin by ear but have never learned to play it from music.
Thanks
What type of music do you enjoy playing on your mandolin?
I play Irish traditional jigs and reels. I can also play slow tunes using tremolo, but that needs a lot of practice. I'd like to be able to play Greek-style double-stringed melodies with built-in harmony, but I haven't quite figured out how to do it yet. Perhaps such a style is more suited to the tuning in 4ths that the bouzouki uses.
Yes, I'm practicing tremolo while playing scales - it'll be a little while before it sounds musical.
What's a good recording of some traditional bouzouki music - in your opinion?
I have a few CDs I picked up in Greece.
It's been two months now, and I'm still playing scales
At first I found it mind-numbing, but then I started using a metronome and that makes it pleasantly meditative  (I have even drooled on occasion - this reminds me of the many jokes out there usually reserved for viola players)
Give each note a name to make it more interesting. You know- Anchovy, Bass, Cod, Dace, Eel, Flounder and Grouper. Then they'll be fish scales!
Keep up the good work.
(And remember what every trapeze artist knows about music- B sharp or B flat.)
Naming the notes, hmm...sounds fishy, but maybe not a bad idea after all - Ill have to mullet.
(btw, It seems like I have spent half my life down by the river - just watching the dace go by)
|   | Subject: New Years Resolutions
Posted Mar 4, 2007 by zendevil
This is a reply to this Posting.
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I miss my mandolin; 'twas a loverly Fender, but forced to sell it to keep warm(ish); but she went to a good home, a decent Celtic band here in france. I would have loved her to have been here tonight with this   ; but c'est la vie.
Not that i ever played "properly"; only by ear,(OK, a "good" ear by all acounts) no clue whatsoever as to names of notes & suchlike; maybe just a lazy sod, maybe just a fortunate person to have the ear, but obviously if i'd been diligent & patient, i would have got more correctness out of her.
But i jammed in the square with young, drunk people with my bass & djembe & pointed out the moon, which they hadn't noticed....
zdt
<<jammed in the square with young, drunk people>>
I was one of those once I do miss playing out in the streets though - Out here (in the middle of nowhere) I wander out in the orchard some evenings and play (when it's warmer).
Btw, what does/did the Fender look like? Is the neck somewhat wide or narrow? Just curious, still being somewhat new to mandolins and all. (I didn't know fender made them, that's how new/ignorant I am). The one I have has a narrow neck, though not unduly - but I played an older gibson in a music store yesterday and it has a wider neck with a great feel to it.
Narrow neck is usually better for playing melodies, while wide neck is better for playing chords.
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