I got to church early on Sunday and found the simplest song to figure out on mandolin. (Last weekend previous was the first time I played mandolin in public ever. I still don't know very many chords and have to figure them out based on guitar chords.) So the band director arrives and says "Mandolin sounds great on the song, but I kinda wanted you to do a guitar solo at the end." (I should mention that apparently I'm our only guitarist who can extemporaneously solo.)

No prob. For the song, I strap on both a guitar and a mando. I play the song on mandolin, we get to the end, I flip the mando out of the way, and play the guitar solo. We were doing a run-through right before church, a few people were already there, and I said "I just want everyone to know this was Joel's (band director) idea." The entire band and a couple people in the pews cracked up. I'd never strapped on 2 instruments at once for as long as I've played.

Have you ever seen this done in church (or otherwise, besides Nielsen)? Like I said, I only did it to fulfill my band director's wishes for the song, but it still seems kind of a "flash" thing for church (even though I tried not to play it up-- I was too intent on switching instruments).

Tell me your thoughts.

I wish my church had a band with a guitarist that played a mandolin and a Strat. Well done, sir.

PS I am also a big Rick Nielsen fan. He's a great guitar player.

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Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I have a desperate plan ...

Come to think of it, I haven't played my Strat there yet. On Sunday I was playing my Epi WildKat.

Nice ...

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Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I have a desperate plan ...

Thanks.

The WildKat is this one:



In reserve I had my Schecter Tempest Special, though I didn't play her:



Here's my cheapie Washburn mandolin:

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I've never seen the "two instruments at once" thing done in church but myself and one other band member swap guitar/bass alot of times. So between the two of us we've played bass/strat/acoustic/very basic mandolin at our church.

I even used the accordion once and there's been hints of someone getting a ukelele, at church? Yeah, keeps it interesting.

Yeah, at my last church I switched between guitar and bass, and at this church I've switched between guitar, bass, and mandolin, but on a song-by-song basis. I agree with bringing in different sounds, which is why I'm trying to learn a little mando. At my last church we occasionally played an African song, and for that I even brought in a banjo!

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Member #26797
My other guitar is a Strat.