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Mandolin
A mandolin is a small, stringed musical instrument which is plucked,
strummed or a combination of both. It is descended from the
mandora.
The
most common tuning for the mandolin is in fifths, the same as for the violin
(G-D-A-E, lowest to highest). Guitarists may occasionally tune a mandolin to
mimic a portion of the intervals on a standard guitar tuning to achieve familiar
fretting patterns.
Like the guitar,
the mandolin has relatively poor sustain; that is, the sound from a plucked
string decays quickly. A note cannot be maintained for an arbitrary length of
time as with a bowed note on a violin. Its small size and higher
pitch
makes this problem more severe than with the guitar, and the use of
tremolo
(rapid picking of one or more pairs of strings) is often used to create a
sustained note or chords. This technique works particularly well with a
mandolin's paired strings, where one of the pair is sounding while the other is
being struck by the pick, giving a more rounded and continuous sound than is
possible with a single coursed instrument.
It is characterized by:
- Eight metal strings in four pairs (courses) that are plucked with a
plectrum,
- A body with a teardrop-shaped soundtable (i.e. face), or one that is
essentially oval in shape,
- A neck with a flat (or slightly radiused) fretted fingerboard, and a nut
and floating bridge,
- A tailpiece or pinblock at the edge of the face to which the strings are
attached
- Mechanical tuning machines, rather than friction pegs,
- A soundtable with a soundhole, or soundholes, of varying shapes that are
open and not latticed.
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Mandolin forms
Mandolins come in several forms. The Neapolitan style, known as a round-back
or bowl-back, (or "tater-bug," colloquial American), has a vaulted back made of
a number of strips of wood in a bowl formation, similar to a
lute, and usually a
canted, two-plane, uncarved top. The Portuguese bandolim, a flat-back style, is
derived from the
cittern, but is tuned the same as most mandolins. Another form has a
banjo-style body.
At the very end of the nineteenth century, a new style, with carved top and
back construction inspired by violin family instruments began to supplant the
European-style bowl-back instruments, especially in the United States. This new
style is credited to mandolins designed and built by
Orville Gibson, a Kalamazoo, Michigan violinmaker who founded the "Gibson
Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Co., Limited." in 1902. Gibson mandolins evolved
into two basic styles: the Florentine or F-style, which has a decorative scroll
near the neck, two points on the lower body, and usually a scroll carved into
the headstock; and the A-style, which is pear shaped, has no points, and usually
has a simpler headstock.
These styles generally have either two f-shaped
soundholes
like a violin (F-5 and A-5), or an oval sound hole (F-4 and A-4 and lower
models) directly under the strings. Much variation exists between makers working
from these archetypes, and other variants have become increasingly common. The
Gibson F-hole
F-5-style mandolins have come to be considered the most typical and traditional
for playing American
bluegrass music, while the A-style is generally more associated with Irish,
folk, or classical music. The differences are more than cosmetic or aesthetic
since the F-hole models have a distinctly different sound than the A-style
models. The more complicated woodwork also translates into a more expensive
instrument.
Internal bracing in the F-style mandolins was usually achieved with parallel
tone bars, similar to a violin's bassbar. Some makers instead employ "x-bracing"
which is simply two tone bars mortised to each other to cross into an X
supporting the top. Some luthiers are now using a "modified x-bracing," which
incorporates both a tone bar and x-bracing.
Numerous modern mandolin makers build instruments that are largely replicas
of the Gibson F-5 Artist models built in the early 1920s by Gibson acoustician
Lloyd Loar.
Original Loar-signed instruments are sought after and extremely valuable.
Example of an oval-hole A-style mandolin
Other American-made variants include the
Howe-Orme
guitar-shaped mandolin (manufactured by the
Elias Howe Company between 1897 and roughly 1920), which featured a
cylindrical bulge along the top from fingerboard end to tailpiece, and the Vega
mando-lute (more commonly called a
cylinder-back mandolin manufactured by the
Vega
Company between 1913 and roughly 1927), which had a similar longitudinal
bulge but on the back rather than the front of the instrument.
As with almost every other contempary string instrument, another modern
variant is the
electric mandolin. These mandolins can have four (single), five (single) or
eight (double) strings.
Mandolin family
The mandolin is the soprano member of the mandolin family, as the
violin is the
soprano member of the
violin family. Like the violin, its scale length is typically about 13
inches (330 mm). Modern American mandolins modeled after Gibsons have a longer
scale, about 13-7/8" (352mm).
Other members of the mandolin family are:
- The
mandola (US and Canada), termed the tenor mandola in
Europe, Ireland and the UK, which is tuned to a fifth below the mandolin, in
the same relationship as that of the
viola to the
violin. Some
also call this instrument the "alto mandola." Its scale length is typically
about 16.5 inches (420 mm). It is normally tuned like a viola: C-G-D-A.
- The
octave mandolin (US and Canada), termed the octave mandola
or mandole in Europe, Ireland, and the UK, which is tuned an
octave below the mandolin. Its scale length is typically about 20 inches (500
mm), although instruments with scales as short as 17 inches (430 mm) or as
long as 21 inches (530 mm) are not unknown.
- The
mandocello, which is classically tuned to an octave plus a fifth below
the mandolin, in the same relationship as that of the
cello to the
violin: C-G-D-A. Today, it is not infrequently restrung for octave mandolin
tuning or the
Irish bouzouki's GDAD. Its scale length is typically about 25 inches (635
mm). A typical violoncello scale is 27" (686mm).
- The Greek laouto is essentially a mandocello, ordinarily tuned
D-G-D-A, with half of each pair of the lower two courses being tuned an octave
high on a lighter gauge string. The body is a staved bowl, the saddle-less
bridge glued to the flat face like most ouds and lutes, with mechanical
tuners, steel strings and tied gut frets. Modern laoutos, as played on Crete,
have the entire lower course tuned in octaves as well as being tuned a
reentrant octave above the expected D. Its scale length is typically about 28
inches (712mm).
- The
mando-bass,
has 4 single strings, rather than double courses, and is tuned like a
double
bass. These were made by the Gibson company in the early twentieth
century, but appear to have never been very common. Reportedly, most
mandolin orchestras preferred to use the ordinary
double
bass, rather than a specialised mandolin family instrument. Calace and
other Italian makers predating Gibson also made mandolin-basses.
- The piccolo or
sopranino mandolin is a rare member of the family, tuned one octave
above the tenor mandola and one fourth above the mandolin; the same relation
as that of the
piccolo or
sopranino violin to the
violin and
viola. One
model was manufactured by the Lyon & Healy company under the Leland brand. A
handful of contemporary luthiers build piccolo mandolins, including Stephen
Gilchrist of Australia and Jamie Wiens of Canada. Its scale length is
typically about 9.5 inches (240 mm).
- The
Irish bouzouki is also considered a member of the mandolin family;
although derived from the Greek
bouzouki,
it is constructed like a flat backed mandolin and uses fifth-based tunings
(most often GDAD, an octave below the mandolin, sometimes GDAE, ADAD or ADAE)
in place of the guitar-like fourths-and-third tunings of the three- and
four-course Greek
bouzouki.
Although the bouzouki's bass course pairs are most often tuned in unison, on
some instruments one of each pair is replaced with a lighter string and tuned
in octaves, in the fashion of the 12-string
guitar.
Although occupying the same range as the octave mandolin/octave
mandola, the Irish bouzouki is distinguished from the former instrument by
its longer scale length, typically from 22 inches (560 mm) to 24 inches (610
inches), although scales as long as 26 inches (660 mm), which is the usual
Greek bouzouki scale, are not unknown.
- The modern
cittern
is also an extension of the mandolin family, being typically a five course
(ten string) instrument having a scale length between 20 inches (500 mm) and
22 inches (560 mm). It is most often tuned to either DGDAD or GDADA, and is
essentially an
octave mandola with a fifth course at either the top or the bottom of its
range. Some luthiers, such as
Stefan Sobell also refer to the
octave mandola or a shorter-scaled
Irish bouzouki as a cittern, irrespective of whether it has four or five
courses.
- In
Indian classical music and Indian light music, the mandolin, which bears
little resemblance to the European mandolin, is likely to be tuned to E-B-E-B.
As there is no concept of absolute pitch in Indian Classical music, any
convenient tuning maintaining these relative pitch intervals between the
strings to can be used. Another prevalent tuning with these intervals is
C-G-C-G, which corresponds to Sa-Pa-Sa-Pa in the Indian carnatic classical
music style. This tuning corresponds to the way violins are tuned for carnatic
classical music.
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