Originally Posted By: Mac
Knowing the bluegrass community, I would think that if a player of any acoustic stringed instrument, mandolin inclusive, who could play the crap out of the thing with strong performance and keep it interesting would have not problem from the bluegrass community at large IF their chosen scordatura (retuning) plus their abilities were capable of such.

"If it sounds good, it is good."

Perhaps the real difference is not in the re-tuning, but in the fact that there are those who attempt to use the re-tuning as a crutch, a shortcut or an attempt to try to fool or mislead their audiences.

The bottom line is that Strong Performance is always rooted in hard work by yourself, and attempts to bypass all those hours in the woodshed are typically bound to fail for obvious reasons.

That said, if we are then faced with no other way to move towards mastery of our chosen instruments, if one is going to spend the long hours and days working hard to meet those goals, they might as well spend that time using the commonly accepted tunings before delving off into the scordatura, crawling, then walking, then running in the natural order.


--Mac


As always, very well said Mac. I tried to offer some tips about the easiest and quickest way to get used to a new instrument.

Who knew that suggesting playing scales would be controversial?

Somehow this thread has reminded me of an old joke about a new piccolo player at church. wink

Bob
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http://soundcloud.com/bobcflatpicke/music-in-the-mountains