This is Anhtony Hannigan, your friendly mandolin and guitar teacher.

 I started playing the mandolin when I was around 4 years old. My whole family played music. There were instruments all around the house I grew up in. My mother played guitar and sang and my father played anything with strings on it. The mandolin was the obvious choice being that my hands were to small to get around anything else.

 I would go to festivals and jam sessions with my family and we would go early and stay late. My father and others encouraged me to play with anyone who would play with me. I ventured into the dark night at a very young age and discoved the all night jam sessions at festivals. I loved it then and I love it now.

 I am a mando-holic!

 I enjoy listening to everything really, the biggest influences to me with music have been, my dad, vassar, steve morse and gypsy jazz. There are to many bands to name but maybe i will do that some day.

 My advice to all, is to have a good mando set up or any instrument so its fun to play, never practice , THATS RIGHT,, sounds to much like work, play and play as much as you can. Leave your instruments out so you have to play them, even if its 5 minutes in the morning. It will help you, trust me. Practive good jam manners and play with people who support your music.