Mandolin Reflection #8

I have noticed that mandolin techniques as well as guitar techniques have helped me in other instruments as well. I got a ukulele over vacation, and I found it extremely easy to start although it has different chords from mandolin and guitar. What I noticed most was that I was really able to apply a lot of skills that I learned for mandolin to my strumming and picking on the ukulele. When I play guitar I mostly do finger picking of varied sorts, so my ability to create coherent and rhythmical strum patterns definitely is borne of my mandolin practicing. I composed a song based in the ukulele, which I was then able to layer vocals, guitar and the mandolin over. The mandolin is the smallest part, but I think that I used it as the instrument is meant to be used -- a very good backup instrument. Mandolin is rarely a solo instrument, and in this case I used it to provide a plunking background noise using an underlying melody I composed mostly by using scales. I also know that what I have learned on the mandolin really shows through in the ukulele part, which is the base for the song. I cannot find a way to post this song to the blog, so I will email it to Mr. Hyer as evidence that it actually exists.