New toy. Technically my spouse’s new toy, so I may have to get my own.
I used to play violin in high school in the 80s and was good at it, but lapsed and lost most of my muscle memory for it (as well as raising my standards about what “good” is). Guitars are just weird and wrong to me but mandolin tuning is in 5ths like the violin and thus makes sense to me. Most of the battle seems to be holding it properly, playing cleanly, and calluses.
It’s a shame fretless mandos tend to be 4-string, have little sustain and sound like a plucked violin without electronic assistance, because a scale length like this with no frets would probably feel pretty great. I like the sound of this one quite a bit though.
While I’ve never been a “real musicians ________” snob, I do think playing acoustic instruments, and trying unfamiliar ones, gives some perspective as well as insight into sound design and music theory. And humility! Here I am struggling to get “Hot Cross Buns” out of it without missed notes and rattles and accidental muting and totally forgetting to hold it properly.
