Wandering Minstrel Accosted by Bluegrass Purist at Kenilworth Park

Just by way of introduction, I'm a musician, among other things.  I was raised by musicians, and I've been playing things with strings on them for a very long time.  I even travel around the world and play music for a living.  I'm 54 years old, and I've been doing this for most of my adult life.  Intro done.

Recently I got a mandola.  For those who don't know, a mandola is just like a mandolin, but usually tuned a fifth lower in pitch.  

I was inspired to get a mandola because for a very long time I had been into improvising on my guitar, tuned in open tuning (DADGAD), with a capo on the seventh fret.  Capoed up there, and in that tuning, I love the tone, and how easy it is to play stuff involving high speed and big intervals, both of which can be harder without a capo, in first position.  A lot of the musical ideas I've been working with have kept me on the first four (lower-pitched) strings of the guitar.  It occurred to me one day that if I tuned a mandola to an open tuning like CGCF, it could be a lot like playing the first four strings of a guitar, capoed on the seventh fret.

So, I got a mandola, and my theory turned out to be correct.  I've been playing all kinds of stuff that sounds very medieval, because of the sound of the instrument, and the open tuning.  I could fit right in at a Renaissance Fair if I wore the right clothing, for sure.  (I know they didn't have steel-stringed instruments back then, but that's OK, it still works.)

For those of you out there who know what an acoustic guitar sounds like, but maybe not a mandola or a mandolin, there's one fact that's particularly relevant:  mandolins and mandolas, like banjos, are loud.  Even a steel-string guitar with lots of resonance isn't loud like a mandola is.  There's a reason mandolins feature so much as instruments for single-note soloing in the context of a bluegrass band -- you can easily be heard above a guitar on a mandolin when you play one clear note, even if the guitarist is really banging away.

When it occurred to me that my new musical obsession was exceedingly portable, I started following my small children around the neighborhood with a mandola.  They like to spend hours barreling around on the hills in the parks with bikes and scooters, and I really needed something to do other than listen to podcasts, anyway.  Playing the mandola instead of listening to podcasts has been amazing for my mental health, not to mention my proficiency at the mandola.

I've discovered that when you're playing a musical instrument in a public setting and you're not busking, most people assume you want space, and they give it to you.  Most people also enjoy the music, and they want to tell you about that, in a way that doesn't distract you too much from playing more music.  

I really don't always know how to respond when people say the music is so nice, as they so often do.  I want to tell them I'm just learning to play this instrument and I'm really not very good at it, but that seems like an arrogant thing to say, as I'm playing stuff that no beginning music student could be playing.  I'm often not sure if they're saying they like the sound of this unusual instrument -- most people have no idea what it is -- or if it's what I'm playing on it that they like.  I don't think they generally know, either.  But in any case, people tend to like it.

I have been gratified to learn that people like hearing music like this.  They may be fans of different kinds of music from whatever it is that I'm playing, be it classical, punk, hip-hop or whatever, but they can appreciate someone playing an instrument while walking down the sidewalk or hanging out in the park, just in principle.  The impact on children is obvious -- they tend to gather round me, gawk, listen, ask questions, make comments, and dance.  I find the mood in the playground is always uplifted by live background music, and the kids get along with each other better, particularly my own kids.

It's also gratifying because of the aforementioned volume issue.  Playing the mandola isn't like blasting canned music from a pickup truck or boom box or whatever, but by acoustic instrument standards it's loud, and can certainly be heard clearly at a hundred feet away, unlike with someone plucking on an acoustic guitar or ukelele, for example.  People in the vicinity -- albeit few in number when I'm in the middle of a grassy park in a residential neighborhood -- have little choice but to listen, so it's nice if they're not suffering through the experience.

There was something always lurking in the back of my mind, though, having spent many years immersed in the bluegrass scene and playing with bluegrass musicians (including as recently as recording my latest album last summer, which features a whole lot of bluegrass mandolin and banjo on it).  That is, that I was not playing the mandola properly, from a bluegrass orientation.

For those of you who aren't familiar, there are ways you play instruments if you're a bluegrass musician, and ways you don't.  Mandolins and mandolas (and mandocellos) are generally tuned like violins and violas (and cellos), in fifths.  

Aside from how an instrument is traditionally tuned, there is the way it is traditionally played.  In bluegrass, the banjo has a fifth string.  It also has a resonator, to make it extra loud.  But the more important thing is the fifth string, which is also a phenomenon shared in common with what is known as old-time music, the clawhammer style of banjo-playing, which also employs a five-string banjo as opposed to the four-string one more common in Irish folk music.

When bluegrass aficionados hear someone playing a five-string banjo in such a way that the player does not appear to be exhibiting any real understanding of what the fifth string is all about, and how it differs from the other four strings in terms of its basic musical purpose, we say they are playing the banjo "like a guitar."  This is an insult, basically.  Usually you wouldn't actually say it to someone, unless you're trying to be mean, or helpful, or both.

Likewise, with proper bluegrass mandolin playing, there is etiquette.  Nothing as obvious as a fifth string to contend with, but in bluegrass, the mandolin player tends to avoid open strings.  There are ways to finger chords that involve open strings, but there are always ways to finger them that avoid them, and this is the general preference the vast majority of the time.  When playing chords, the bluegrass mandolinist generally "chunks" on the two and four, while the bass player drives with the one and three, creating the basic bluegrass sound -- the bluegrass equivalent of drums and bass, in rock or reggae terms.  In order to get that concise, tight "chunk" sound, playing entirely closed chords is essential.  The open strings ring out way too much, and with bluegrass mandolin, string-muting is a constant thing that involves both hands, in order to get that clear, rhythmic sound that we think of when we think of bluegrass mandolin.

And when we bluegrass snobs see someone going around with a mandolin who is playing lots of open strings on it, as with people playing banjos who aren't doing anything special with the fifth string, we mutter under our breaths and we think, "that person doesn't know how to play the mandolin, that person is playing it like a guitar."

So, when I got this lovely mandola and set about to play music on it like I wanted to, in an open tuning, really playing it more like a four-string banjo, in the Irish sense, than like a mandolin in the bluegrass sense, I was always looking over my shoulder for the bluegrass purists who I might offend through my errant musical behavior.  I knew they'd be out there, and hoped I'd win them over, despite my musical rebelliousness, if they listened for a few seconds and gave me a chance.

However, this was not to be, at least not with the one guy who apparently lives right next to Kenilworth Park, who accosted me last night, as I was walking home with my little boy, passing his house.

A tall, thin man with orange hair and two small white dogs, he looked to be around forty years old.  He wasn't shouting, but he was livid, veins bulging, really scary levels of anger being displayed.  I worried about whether he was armed, and I worried about my young child, as I stood there taking in his rage.

"I live right here," he said, pointing to his house.  "You make me listen to that thing every day.  You should really go to Trade-Up Music and learn how to play that thing.  It's a mandolin." 

I didn't point out that it's actually a mandola.  Then, with much more emphasis, he continued.

"It's tuned G-D-A-E."

He spat out the proper pitch of each string like it was quoting a sacred religious verse, and I was a heretic.

"And those eight strings are four pairs, they're supposed to be the same pitch as each other."

This last bit was a particularly low blow, not even worthy of a bluegrass purist -- whatever else he might have to say about this situation, my instrument was at least in tune with itself, I have excellent pitch.  Regardless of which musical style I may be disrespecting, I'm doing it in tune.

"Are you serious?" 

This was all I could think of to say in response, as I backed away with my son and continued towards home.  He made it very clear he was indeed serious.  And I knew exactly what kind of serious he was, because he's just a really emotionally disturbed version of the bluegrass purist that most of us bluegrass aficionados have within us.

I'm actually afraid to bring my mandola back to Kenilworth Park, for fear of being shot by this guy, he's really obviously unhinged.  I wish he could just relax and enjoy some nice music instead, like most of his neighbors have been doing, but I guess not.  

Moral of the story, perhaps, is if you're going to play the mandolin (or the mandola) in Kenilworth Park, you better play proper bluegrass, or else.