I started playing the mandolin in 2005, when my husband Paul presented me with one found while cleaning out his Aunt Helen's house.  I'd always been intrigued with the mandolin, the sweet, high tremolo and the tiny little size compared with all the guitars I've ever played. I started experimenting with Aunt Helen's treasured instrument, first taking cues from beginner's books from the music store, then taking the mando to Paul's guitar classes to sit in with his students, then working on arrangements while playing with Paul.  It helps that I studied violin for a few years in grade school--although I was so terrible one of my excellent teachers flew into a hair-tossing rage.  The patterns they sought to teach became imprinted in my fingers anyway.  They're the same one needs to know for the mandolin.

I own another instrument now, a pre-Gibson Flatiron, and its little pancake face belies its power.  A few years back, recalling Jimmy Buffett's song, "There's Something So Feminine About a Mandolin," I wrote my own commentary about this wonderful instrument and how, I believe, it relates to women.  With all due respect, the poem is my reply to Jimmy.  -- Becca Lawton, August 2009

Photograph courtesy Susan Bono