I was going to work--45 students, all required to be in masks, myself in a mask as well--and had been going to pub sessions, where I'm was blowing across the opening in a tube, with no mask. I decided this was not sustainable or advisable, for myself or others.
So I picked up a used mandolin for very cheap, nothing fancy, a ply top chinese made mandolin that played quite well but was very thin and one dimensional sounding. It was enough to show that forty years of playing bass and guitar is of some value in transitioning to mandolin.
So I went to my local music shop where I've been going for decades and traded in a bunch of guitar stuff for a Weymann mandolin, made in Philadelphia in 1914.
It's a nice old instrument well aged, with the eccentricities one might expect. It likes lighter strings and rings beautifully in the mid-range. I've been studying the playing of Marla Fibish, who is really terrific, a graceful payer with good taste and fine sense of swing.
At least I can play the mandolin in a mask, and if I'm terrible the mask will conceal my identity.
