Looking for Inspiration

I've come back to tell you about the second concert I attended on the same day last month. It's been quite some time already, but I still have some of that mood on my mind. It so happens that the same day this celebration happened, there was also another concert planned for later. It was the regional gathering of mandolinists.

I had attended one of these before and I knew it started too late for the idea. You see this gathering brings mandolinist from the State and other states of the country to play some music for themselves and the public present. The one I attended a year ago took a whooping 5 hours to be done. There's that many mandolin players and with each of them playing 2 pieces at an average of 3 minutes, well, it's a lot of time.

However, it is a cool idea. I know there are some festivals around the world dedicated to particular instruments and certain genres of music. So, having the chance to attend is actually cool. I know a lot of the people who are playing. I should be playing too, but more on that later.

So, I had back to back concerts and tried to make the best out of it. This one was an introspection chance. I stopped playing mandolin when my computer died on 2021. It was too difficult to tried to record without having a metronome on my ear. Besides, mandolin covers were made on different instruments as well. And I was looking for a reason to get back playing it.

I can't think of a better way to do it than going to a concert that's all about it!

In case you're wondering, mandolins aren't part of the traditional Venezuelan instruments. These are Italian instruments. But on this continent, there are 3 countries where they are played for regional types of traditional music: United States, Brazil and Venezuela. I guess since we had a lot of Italian migration, we took the instrument and adapted it to our music. Here on the east side, our Joropo has the mandolin as one of it's main instruments. It used to be also a sign of status. People who played mandolin had money. In the fields, people played other kinds of instruments. But this has changed a lot.

While I was there watching all this people playing, I couldn't stop to think how cool it would be to pick up Bri again and make some music. Besides, it's not like years and years of practice are going to go away that easily. Also, it's kind of sad to have such a good instrument store for no particular reason.

In the end, I couldn't stay for the whole concert. But I got to see some interesting player do their magic on the stage. As nod to the previous concert, it is not only a concert the best way to honour the memory of a musician. It is the best way to look for inspiration while you're a musician yourself.

• Fotos/Photos and Video 📹 📷: taken by me (Redmi Note 8)

• Portada/Thumbnail 🖼️: by me, created with Canva.

• Edición/Editing 🎬: by me, made with Capcut.

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