I know this forum has a ton of very talented Fender Strat & Tele players. But then a few of us are also sort of multi-instrumentalists as well (guitar, keyboards, trumpet, sax, etc...)

Anyway, I have a beautiful A-body style mandolin, and wonder who else plays mandolin on this forum? I am by no means a wicked bluegrass mandolin player (i.e. Bill Monroe, etc..) but I do enjoy strumming and playing a few runs here and there on a mandolin.

Mandolin......it's not just for bluegrass music anymore.

Ever heard Steve Earle's "Copperhead Road"?

Rawk on!



Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Hi Butch, (BTW my nickname is Butch) I've been playing bluegrass mandolin for quite a while. Arjay is right in that mandolin isn't just for bluegrass anymore, I played mandolin in Church just yesterday. I have a Flatiron F5 Artist with a Fishman transducer so I can plug in at Church. When I play bluegrass it is definitely unplugged, as my bluegrass friends would skin me alive .

I used to try and play mandolin.......but my chubby digits made it nigh on impossible.......so I just put it down and forgot about it.

Started a new band this year and we are looking at doing some trad Scottish and Irish tunes and the singer said she was thinking about getting a mandy as she plays violin and it's a reasonably easy transition. I gave her mine and explained the whole sorry affair about my fat fingers and beig pretty gutted I couldn't tke it much further and she suggested an Irish Bouzouki.........so I got one and Love It!!!!!!!!!!

Instead of GDAE I tune it to GDAD and can easily get my fingers around the frets and chords and scales!!!!!!!

So althugh it's strictly not a mandolin, it's almost an Octave Mandolin so I feel a can say, ' yes mate....I play mandolin also'

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speak slowly I'm a drummer too!!

And I proudly lack a stick or a kazoo up my arse...........

I have a near mint circa '67 Kent solid body electric mandolin with a somewhat Strat-like shape.A buddy of mine gave it to me as it had sat in a case since new and in the 40 years it was in the closet the neck and action had made it almost impossible to play.I took the neck off and experimented with various shims until I got it right and now the action is incredibly close all the way up the neck.Even though I have smallish hands and fingers I have a hard time fretting and making chords comfortably on the mandolin,I can't see how Bill Munroe could do it with the huge set of mitts that he had on him.Anyway some day I hope to give the mandolin another try and see if I can make some sense of it.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Yes, a couple years ago I talked my way into a band as a mandolinist.

I have a Fender.





I'm not in that band any more, but I still play mandolin in church a little.

Wow, great photos!

It's cool that there's a few mandolin players on here. I want to get an F-body mandolin one of these days, but they are so expensive! It'll have to wait.

I have played my mandolin on one track of my slower ballads. It was nothing extravagant. I wanted to strum the chords on a mandolin in the background, to give the overall sound a little more flavor.

The only song I can do that's relatively fast is, "The Ballad of St. Anne's Reel". I sing the verses, but substitute mandolin for the fiddle sections, as there is no way I could play my grandmother's violin that fast (besides, I'm pretty bad on violin!)