So, since Andy was in need of a Mandolin lesson, I decided to give him one in exchange for food. Last year, I gave him a lesson following our Playing By Ear Method but I didn’t really know it. I mean I knew it word for word but I didn’t know know it. Basically, I could give the class but if somebody asked a question or if I started to go off the script, I was stuck. And that’s how it was a year ago. It was worse ’cause Andy kinda complicated it ’cause when I asked him what a tone was (and I knew the answer, I was just quizzing him), he went over to the piano and gave me a lesson!
But this time, there wasn’t gonna be any theory, it was just gonna be technique. He needed more power and confidence in his playing and I was gonna fix that.
Yesterday, we scheduled a class for today for right after Volleyball and I thought I wouldn’t have time to make an outline or cheat sheet for myself but when I came back from Volleyball, Andy wasn’t here so I whipped up something. 30 minutes past and he didn’t come so I gave him a little call. He thought the class was gonna be tomorrow we sorted things out and ten minutes later, he came.
I went over some extremely, very, and most very valuable stuff. I was gonna first play the song (Shady Grove) with him before I told him what he was doing wrong but when we started the song, I couldn’t stop smiling and/or laughing ’cause his strum was . . . interesting in a funny way. I decided to skip the “playing the song first” step and went on to tell him how to chop (that’s a mando term for ’strum’ for all you musically declined folks out there) which made a HUGE difference.
After the lesson, we planned on where we’d eat. We were gonna go down to the mall to look but Andy had to make a call and he forgot the phone number so we went back to his house to make the call. He said the moment he went in the house, he remembered the number! I know that feeling! After he made the call, we drove to Upper Crust Pizza. We went there last year after I gave him a lesson so it’s kind of a tradition. You can get a whole 9″ pizza and it’s so thin, you can eat the whole thing and be comfortably full. . . and that’s what I did. I ordered some garlic on mine. I thought it was gonna be garlic powder but they put on good, fresh garlic!
On the way back, I thought it was Thursday and I went to Sylvan to pick up my banjo. Well, Al said that it wasn’t ready and he said I was supposed to come on Thursday. Then I realized it was Wednesday! OoPs!
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