musicking as therapy.

We're having some drama with J's Angry Biodad--you might call it The Great Drama™, in its scope, and the years of its anticipation. It's one of those dramas where one does well to prepare for physical conflict, hoping to avoid it, and yet violence would eliminate the shadows and interpretations where gaslighting can operate. Perhaps, once on the other side, we can have a party and raffle off the extra pepper spray we no longer feel we need.

We are all coping in our respective ways. Improbably or not, mine involves putting energy and effort into musical instruments that I mostly haven't in the past, especially--get this--practicing. There's the ongoing battle of wills with the violin, but there's the octave mandolin, and the regular mandolin, and I've even been picking up the guitar a bit more, although it's awkward because it's not tuned in fifths, and one of the reasons I decided to jump on the mandolin as well as the violin is that my left fingers have never liked spanning the long distances of the guitar.

I had an electric guitar for a long time, a lovely Fender Stratocaster that might now be worth more than I paid for it (it had a rosewood fingerboard, now a premium feature due to conservation issues). I never really learned to play it, though. The electric guitar has six strings and the same tuning, but that's about where the similarities end: it's a radically different instrument.

Luckily for me, people have been making electric mandolins for a long time. Not a lot of electric mandolins, mind you. You're not going to just walk into Guitar Center (or anywhere else) and pick one up. There's only ever been a double handful of "mass"-production models, and only about a handful now. The extremely-niche website emando.com can help you find a used one, or a willing/experienced luthier (anyone who's built a solid-body guitar could build you a solid-body mandolin, if they want to, but they have to earn a living and might not want the bother).

I decided to start small, with the only solid-body mandolin kit on the market. I used to fantasize about building an electric guitar from parts, and this seems like a low-friction, low-cost path to the mandolin equivalent. If it sticks, maybe I'll get a nicer one, or just upgrade the kit.

Fender and Gibson both made electric mandolins, and Fender re-issued theirs a while back:

I bet it'll be fun.