Still too under the weather for church this morning, but also better enough that just lying around is somewhat infuriating. So I looked around for something to do that didn’t require much brain power, and remembered that quite a few months ago our priest gave me an old mandolin he had to spare. I had accepted it on theory that a) it’s strung like a violin, albeit doubled, b) I started playing the violin 40 years ago, so it’s not like I’m unfamiliar with that and c) why not?; but I hadn’t done anything with the thing.

The mandolin was missing both E strings and a G, but there was also a full set of replacements, so I figured I could at least put the missing strings on. It turns out stringing a mandolin is a little more complicated than stringing a violin, which hands clumsy from illness and shaky from coffee on an empty stomach didn’t do much to help. I did manage to get the G string wound and tuned! Unfortunately, I had such trouble with the first E that—well, long story short, it snapped once I started tightening it to a rough tuning. So without enough strings to actually finish the job, I decided to just stop for now.

I’ll order some more strings when I get paid. But if you know any mandolin pieces that only need G, D, and A strings, let me know!