Sometimes I have a weakness for beautiful and rare instruments. I have a habit of looking at banjos I cannot afford and dreaming about the day when I buy one. When I am not looking at banjos for sale on the internet I look at other bluegrass instruments that I don't know how to play and think, “If I buy one of those and learn to play it, I'll be much more popular at the jams.” Rarely on my lifelong quests for musical machines do I come across an undeniable deal. Once, when I was fourteen, I found a prewar Gibson Mastertone banjo in an antique shop in Hershey Pennsylvania. It was remarkably cheap, but sadly, it was still too expensive for a fourteen year old boy. Another, more recent time, I found a handmade dreadnought guitar, perfect for Bluegrass flatpicking. The solid wood instrument was perfectly crafted by a preacher from Watauga County North Carolina. But again a high quality but decently priced instrument escaped my grasp. By the time I returned to the music store it resided in it was gone, sold to a luckier picker than I.
This week I was finally able to take advantage of a great deal. I had been talking with a friend of mine about my interest in learning how to play a mandolin. Since the vast majority of the Bluegrass musicians I know in Boone can play the mandolin I thought I should try to practice some. My friend pointed me in the direction of a mandolin that was for sale in Johnson City Tennessee. The instrument that was for sale was by no means the same quality as the two gems I had unearthed earlier in my life, but it wasn't a toy. The retail price of the same model instrument goes today for $400. After talking the seller down a substantial amount I was able to secure this player grade instrument for a low price of $150 even. On Sunday November 10th I drove to Johnson City and picked up the newest member of my ever growing instrument family, an F-style The Loar brand mandolin.
No comments:
Post a Comment