Mandolin players?
Any mandolin players out there on the side to the violin? If you don't know, the mandolin is tuned exactly like a violin.
I just picked up the mandolin to mess around with and the band Nickel Creek has kinda inspired me. This whole plucking thing is pretty discouraging though.
Replies (75)
I "fiddle around" on the mandolin occasionally, but the ol' fellow I play on has a chip in the nut so that one of the E-strings ends up as an F#... I really should fix it, 'cause it's a fun thing to play around on.
Yeah, the plucking thing is really weird! I also try to challenge myself by thinking in chords instead of melody (it's good for my fiddling, too, I figure) -- so between blocking chords and trying to pluck the right strings and keep up with the tune as it's rolling by me, it ain't easy! :)
I had an uncle who was an amateur mandolin player, but he was really very good at it. He played classical and folk music (mostly European and Russian), and played on a regular basis with a small group in a local restaurant. Unfortunately, I never took him up on his offer to teach me the mandolin, even though I took a few introductory lessons from him. I find that the right hand technique is a whole new world, even thought the left hand is easy.
I am just now picking up the violin after having played mandolin for the past few years. It's funny to read that some people find the right hand technique to be tricky, when it's my experience that handling a pick is about a thousand times easier than handling a bow. Overall, I think the mandolin is probably easier to learn, since you have the frets and therefore don't have to really worry about intonation. Just my two cents.
Hi, Kevin: Yes, maybe it's easy for most, but somehow it isn't for me. Maybe it's that when you've used a bow and that kind of hand and arm motion for so many years, it's like re-learning how to walk. Anyway, when I have a chance, I'm going to take out that mandolin and try to get back to it.
Thanks, Sandy
Nickel Creek is awesome, I must say. I do play the mandolin, as does my mother. We were both in the Virginia Mandolin Consort- if you haven't heard of it, there's a reason. It was a fun group- it's very different to try and play, particularly thanks to the frets. Oh, and using a pick and learning to tremolo nicely and evenly on one of those things is impossible. Cheers to fellow mandolinists!
I pick/teach mandolin some. My progression was guitar-mandolin-violin. I anticipated violin to be a lot easier after first coming to grips with mandolin. I didn't have a clue as to how hard this would be, though I'm sure the mandolin helped some.
Both my brother Rex (Flamenco/Classical guitarrist) and myself play mandolin.
I love the dance in Prokofiev's Romeo in Juliet with the mandolins and the trumpets. Great piece of music.
The whole mandolin family is a tuning mirror of the violin family. The tuning is the same but with double strings it's also very different.
And if you really want to get serious about the mandolin you have to forget about the violin mentality and think more like a guitarist. If you think about playing chords on the mandolin as you would on the violin you'll be lost before you start.
Nevertheless, the G-D-A-E tuning is incorporated in many other string instruments such as the Bouzouki (though it has a secondary tuning as well), the Cittern (though it has several other tunings and is 5 strings), the Oud (but with 6 strings), and even the balalaika bass (though with 3 strings, EAD).
Using common charts violinists can quickly get a start into making music on these (and other) string instruments by simply ignoring the other strings if more than 4.
I sold my A model mandolin and am now looking for a good F5. It would be great to have something like Reischman's Gibson Lloyd Loar but I don't have a spare $40-50K (sigh). His mandolin is really fantastic. He hates to use a mic simply because he doesn't need too. I've heard him play on many occasions with other mic'd instruments and his Lloyd Loar soared through them all.
In checking out a few mandolin sampling sessions in the last couple of years I've also noticed that if the maker is good his price jumps quickly and can double in just a few years. A local maker here, Michael Heiden is just such an example. Research is extremely important when deciding on a decent mandolin. It's quite different from violin making. There are mandolin makers that are still only charging around $3K for instruments that will blow away others 3 or 4 times the cost.
Besides Mike Marshall (listen to his recordings with Daryl Anger on violin) and John Reischman, a few of my favourites are Radim Zenkl, Emory Lester, Chris Thile (from Nickel Creek), Dave Grisman, and of course, Sam Bush.
It's nice to see some interest here in the mandolin.
I play or play at mandolin. I say "play at" because I've never learned tremolo and I can't play very fast with my right hand. There are bluegrass mandolin virtuosos. I have a Gibson model F, which I got for $500 at a used instrument sale. I use it for several purposes: I learn tunes from radio and CDs by plucking along. I play mandolin rather than violin, why I don't want to wake people. I've learned the elements of chords, and that is a transferrable skill. I like to play double stops on my fiddle. Finally, there's one very important use: Sometimes I just have to listen with my hands.
I have a piece of crap mandolin and I can play it, but I sound like crap on it. I guess we're a good match.
A POS mandolin is a real non-starter. Emily, if you borrowed a really nice one, preferrably with an arched (radiused) fingerboard you would probably be totally blown away by how great it sounds.
On violins, you can make up a lot of ground with bowing technique--but on a mandolin, if it is a dud, there is just nothing you can do...
Recommendations: under $1000 I'd look for an older (1980's Japanese-made) Kentucky
1k-2k Webber, Eastman
2k-5k Breedlove
5k-up Collings
I'm sure there are other good ones, these are off the top of my head.
So I'm assuming the $40 mandolin I bought from the consignment store is a dud? :-P I use it mainly to just mess around with, but I may just spend the $75 to get it completely adjusted at the local Guitar Center.
To give a heads up to mandolin fans, Mike Marshall and Chris Thile will be touring in January '06.
http://www.mikemarshall.net/concerts.htm
$40 sometimes strikes gold :-)
I almost bought a 1926 Gibson A style for $750.
Good breakdown Mike.
You can also get a Collings, plain-jane F model for under $4k. I've heard some of his $7-$10k instruments and you really can't go wrong.
Personally, the best I've heard besides vintage Gibsons however are Sawchyn's mandolins. I've heard a few and they are unbelievable. A couple of years ago I was in a jam with a group of mandolin players, all with various good instruments, including a nice Gilchrist. The Sawchyn made everyone's jaw drop. It was far louder, projected better, was better focused, and had a much richer sound than all the rest. On the chorus lines you could hear the Sawchyn over all of them. A mandolin of his was also chosen by some of the best mandolin players in the world at a mandolin sampling session I was recently at, and from a wide selection too, including Gibson, Gilchrist, Heiden, and Collings. And it was his low-end F5 (or S5 as he calls them), bought two years ago for $3,000. It created quite a stir.
What merry novelties may one perform on these mandolin things?
I think the best thing about being a violist is that while the violinists may look down on me I can always look down on those who play the mandolin. :) ;) <--- note smilie thingies!
Neil
IF...the violist is standing and the mandolinist is sitting.
I am a violist and I look down on most everyone, being 6'2". :)
Holy basketball player.
Well my mandolin needs adjusting, like the bridge needs to be moved around. So I called up Guitar Center and they said there'd be a guy who could do a complete adjustment for $75 which includes new strings. I go in today and they said there's no one who could do it. What the hell?????? Oh well.
I guess the question is, is $75 the average price for a full on adjustment? It seems steep to me, but I'm not sure since i'm new to the game.
Sounds like someone has an altitude! :)
Well actually 'third violinists' (oh, sorry...violists) have a mirror instrument in the mandolin family as I was saying above. For the Viola it's the Mandola, for the cello the Mandocello, and for the Bass, yup the Mandobass.
And of course the really adventurous violinists simply get a five string violin (they're way cool) and then...well, who needs the viola??? ;-)
But all kidding aside, if you haven't heard the mandolin family there are plenty of recordings out there. Mike Marshall has really done a lot of great music with different members of the mandolin family.
Jim, the "novelties" are endless. There are whole galaxies of various folk, ethnic, religious, regional, national, and modern music for these instruments. Doing a google search for "mandolin recordings" yields above 1/2 the number of "violin recordings." Now when you search for fiddle you also get about half as much as violin. To me this might loosely be translated into something like: for every two violinists there is 1 mandolinist and 1 fiddler. :-)
Where may one hear the mandolin family? A civilized setting please, since my research indicates they are known to attract bucolic dilettantes, and I do find venturing into rural areas positively frightening . Also, where may I hear the soprano mandolin in recital sans consort?
In answer to your bucolic concerns:
He that picketh and also grinneth, beware.
I saw a mandolin quartet--2 mandolins, 1 mandola, 1 mandocello--on tv some years back. Good players, a nice effort, but it fell so short of a good string quartet that I couldn't get beyond that. I'm sure if a good repertoire existed for it (probably written especially for it) it would be different. I feel the same about guiar trios and quartets. Two guitars, fine; more than two, no.
George: Gibson 335 (or Epiphone or..)
John: Rickenbacker (or Gibson J-160 or...)
Paul: Hofner Bass
Three guitars :0-)
I'm still waiting to hear a Jew's Harp quartet (Sorry, that should be "Minority Harp").
You can easily make a trio of Jew's Harps--there are three sizes available from either West Music or Music Is Elementary (can't remmeber which).
This summer, I passed a guy on CT route 9; he was driving a BMW 320i with his knees and playing a jew's harp!
Sometimes the packaging now says "jaw" harp :-/
Exactly Bill!
We're talking different genres here. If you don't admire a particular genre of music it's not going to matter to you what instruments are being played in that genre.
But anyway Jim, start by taking a listen to some Mike Marshall/Daryl Anger recordings. There are far too many to list. Also keep in mind that a lot of them are mostly improvisation, yet improvisation on a grand scale. I heard them in a class I was taking in the Vancouver Folk Festival a fair number of years ago. One of them just starting playing and the other joined in, it was amazing. You could instantly tell that their knowledge of musical styles, pathos, key change patterns, sympathetic duality, and technical dexterity were of the kind that very very few even come close to achieving. I was shocked when I went up to Daryl Anger after and asked him where I could get a recording of the piece they'd played and he said that if I hadn't recorded it, it didn't exist.
It's actually a little frightening when you see, right in front of your eyes, somebody inventing and playing beautiful music at a higher technical level than many classical artists achieve via memorization. I was more amazed at this than I was with Nigel Kennedy's 'Jimi Hendrix' show, though I loved that one too. All Nigel had really done was arrange some Hendrix tunes. Yet the impact of Nigel's 'Hendrix show' on the perception of 'classical music lovers', imho, has been profound.
It follows along the same line as there being something important to be said of the fact that a google of "Jimi Hendrix" comes in with almost 4 1/2 million hits whereas "Jascha Heifetz" delivers somewhat over 200k. And it's definitely not that this is simple example of the "great unwashed" or "plebeian taste" or some other such preaching of the sins of pastoralization. It has to do with those forces which popularize particular people. I love both Heifetz and Hendrix.
After all, if it wasn't for Schubert and a few others in the 19th Century we might not have the huge popularity of Bach today. And the same goes for Beethoven, via Liszt, Wagner, Mahler, et al. There are countless examples of this throughout the history of music right up to the modern composers.
I know a fiddler who says that she doesn't play mandolin because the frets get in her way.
Bill---George played a Gretsch in the early years (when John played a Rick and Paul played the Hofner).
Rick--I was speaking only of a mandolin quartet playing traditional classical string quartet repertoire. I love good mandolin playing, even mandolin playing solo in a Vivaldi concerto. I'm a big fan of Jethro Burns, Tiny Moore, David Grisman, Chris Thiele, etc.
For an amazing experience check out Even Marshall, especially the first track on "The Lone Arranger." It's a jaw-dropping listening experience. Go to the link below and click on the first track (note: this excerpt is random and is not the most impressive part of the arrangement)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000002N2/qid=1135181923/sr=8-3/ref=pd_bbs_3/002-9302141-6237603?v=glance&s=music&n=507846
I agree that Darol Anger is someone to look for--and especially live. I was fortunate enough to not only see him playing with Psychograss (speaking of mandolins, Mike Marshall's in that project, too) but also jam and improvise up close and personal--he was a "guest lecturer" so to speak at a children's fiddle camp. He had his "Republic of Strings" project partners along with him. He's an extraordinary player, and also humble.
Mike,
Interesting about the Gretch. Seems they all played a lot of stuff. Except paul, who seemed to be either Hofner, or Rickenbacker, through the 60's. I read somewhere that most of the recordings had John on a Gibson....who really knows?
Yes, I see what you mean about the classical string quartet stuff--you cannot merely play it on the mandolins and expect it to work.
Mike,
go here, and get "Dance of the Planktons" for free:
(Mike Marshall)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000002GW/qid=1135183909/sr=2-3/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_3/102-6691395-5837744?v=glance&s=music
Mike my comments were not directed at you in any way. They were general comments made from reading through this thread and noting the somewhat reticent yet typical attitude of some musicians to accept different instrumental/musical genres other than their own.
I think the experience/exposure has to be there 'first hand' before someone will change their mind and accept something new, and sadly, this happens less than what one mind think.
Funny thing is I don't see a single person in this thread being "reticent" in accepting the mandolin. A few of us made jokes, but that's what they were and to read anything more into it than that is rather silly.
Neil
Unfortunately, I think you miss my point Neil. My comments are meant to promote mandolin to those who have mentioned they are beginning and are asking questions about the mandolin 'and' to those such as yourself who have made (somewhat funny I might add) jokes. My point simply is 'pick one up and try it out' or 'listen to some recordings by so and so'. By 'reticent' I'm using the meaning of: 'having somewhat of a reservation' or 'being somewhat quiet'. I, not so unusually imo, view 'jokes' as usually being reticent in and of themselves since they can be uplifting in humour while not really saying anything, unless driven by clear rhetoric.
I'm on the other end of the spectrum...shouting it from the rooftops with no reservations whatsoever. I'm not quite sure how this is 'silly' but then again maybe it is...??
Jim,
Check out the Classical Mandolin Society:
www.classicalmandolinsociety.org/groups/index.htm
Also, there is the American Mandolin and Guitar Summer School held at the Roger Williams University in Rhode Island which features classical, and chamber, as well as exploring world music. Director Marilynn Mair also writes the regular Classical Approach column for Mandolin Magazine.
Beethoven wrote six pieces for the Mandolin & harpsicord including The Sonatina in C Major which has been called Beethoven's best fiddle tune. Bach's Prelude from the Cello Suites, as well as the Sonatas and Partitas, have been transcribed for, and recorded by mandolins.
Hmmm.
Well, thanks, Wanda.
I was just going to put in here that Beethoven wrote for mandolin. Now I have nothing to say.
*shrugs* My teacher plays the mandolin. I personally don't like it that much.
It can be a beautiful instrument, and people like sam bush, mike marshal, and other prove this.
Listen to some edgar meyers stuff and I think most people will change their mind on the mandolin lol.
the plucking is alittle bit discouraging though, because being a violinist means you get as much of the note as you want. If you simply strike a string the only thing you can do with it is play another note, or not play another note.
Hi, I have a beautiful old Gibson that sounds great and use it to accompany singers by playing chords and picking thru them. It is also fun to play tunes as I play in the Irish style so the instrument seens to lend it self very well. I have heard Nickel Creek and enjoy them. The fiddle and mandolin are so closely related it seems hard not to play them both. Good luck and have fun.
I really like the Vivaldi mandolin concertos.
I haven't listened to mandolins playing what's supposed to be string quartet music, but the things that people have listed above are really amazing.
One of my favorite albums is Bela Fleck playing a pretty wide variety of classical music on Banjo--but it really works for me.
Somebody is selling a whole collection of old instruments that includes a Gibson Lloyd Loar mandolin, worth over 100,000 by itself. If anybody buys the lot, flip me the Lg-2 for turning you on to it. It's the least you can do. link
I love mandolin!My grandfather used to play the mandolin and I think I got from him the love for music in general...I like playing the mandolin,it has such a sweet sound!
Someday when I find the time, I plan on learning to play. My family's very bluegrass-oriented (Nickel Creek is a favorite of mine, too), so I figure it can't hurt. :)
Mandolin is a great instrument.
My own mandolin is a old bowlback that was originally a wall decoration at a local music store. It was not for sale, but I talked (bullied) the owners into trading a Polytone amplifier for it straight up.
After some TLC, it has become my gigging instrument. This mandolin has an inlay of an angel done in mother of pearl at the pickguard.
Nowadays, most mandolin players strum chords and rhythms. I've always shied away from that. I take a pianistic approach to the mandolin in that I'm trying to play chord melodies. Because of the frets, one can come up with different positions than exist on the violin.
I play the mandolin with various picking techniques. I'll do it with the flatpick, with thumbpick and fingers, or just fingers. Most of the time I'm on the flatpick because it's hard to get expression with just fingers. I'll do fingerstyle mandolin if I'm aiming for a sound akin to that of a Chinese hammered dulcimer.
I just ordered a 5 string solid body electric mandolin. its gonna be awesome to play on basically a guitar that is tuned like my violin! no more annoying 4ths!
I hear you, Jordan...I'm playing a piece (Prokofiev's Overture on Hebrew themes) which has so many melodic and harmonic perfect fourths I could scream...no way can I get them all in tune.
I've had a mandolin for about 3 years. I sometimes play it at sessions. I acutally love to play it, I just don't have much time. I could use some plucking instructions for sure and there are some good methods out there, depending on what your interest is (bluegrass, Irish, etc.)
I've heard Chris Thile in concert twice now, once with Nickel Creek and once with Edgar Mayer, and he is a mando genius. What a talent and a sheer pleasure to hear.
I played for years...lately it's been neglected for my violin but it's a beautful instrument...I pick and use a flat pick...medium hardness...
I recently played Stravinsky's "Agon" ballet with the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra as a mandolinist.
I needed amplification, so my sound man (a true genius who works at Arizona State University in a recording studio) hooked up an inexpensive but good Radio Shack microphone to my portable Roland Cube amp that I power with rechargeable batteries for total portability. I got myself a mike stand and dragged all that gear to rehearsals.
During the concert, I was afraid of feedback. Fortunately, I didn't have any. My bowlback mandolin is extremely powerful (much more than a standard "thin" mandolin) and so I didn't need much amplification.
The reason I'm posting this is to show that one doesn't need an "electric" mandolin to have decent amplification when playing with an orchestra.
The reason your bowlback didn't feed back isn't because it is powerful. It is because your speaker output was not directed towards your instrument. Had you put a 100 watt "monitor" at your feet and cranked it up, I'm sure you could have had feedback.
The orchestra will not produce feedback in your instrument: feedback is "feedback," not "feed forward." The microphone was local to you, not the orchestra, and the speakers were not toward you, so no feedback.
Another note: Gibson-style mandolins are much louder than the "Italian" tater-bug types they replaced. The bowlback simply will not pick up much energy from the orchestra in any case.
Dounis was a Mandolin player. There exist some live performances of his playing. They sound pretty good to me.
I play mandolins regularly, mainly to test them. One of my odd businesses is the "mandovoodoo" optimization process, developed from what we do to optimize violins. So I get to see all kinds of mandolins as they come through the shop for work.
Most are copies of the Gibson designs, either with F holes or oval holes. Some are new, such as the Draleon Gypsy Jazz mandolin. Always interesting, regardless!
Mandolin fingers easily. Pick is (as one would expect) the difficult thing. I tend to fingerpick like a guitar or use anything handy to play. Clearly I'm a bad person, or at least a bad influence!
www.mandolincafe.com is the place to go.
Now here's a verrrry special mandolin for sale. Another Gibson Lloyd Loar, all original. Nice pictures. http://www.gryphonstrings.com/instpix/27979/27979.html
What's with all the mandolin madness on here lately? :)
I've not played an authentic mandolin, but I'm actually a slightly-better-than-dreadful domra player. I mean, I don't actually own a domra but if somebody hands me one, I can do a passable job with it. Similarly, it's tuned just like a violin. :)
I'm mad because my mandolin doesn't work.
I play classical and bluegrass music on the violin/fiddle. I will just say that Nickel creek is amazing and that Chris Thile is undoubtedly the greatest mandolin player that has ever lived. He is my musical idol, even though I don't play mandolin........
Just work on your right hand technique and you will get better. In fact, Chris Thile has a fantastic DVD that he put out quite a while back. It is titled "Essential Techniques for Mandolin."
Good Luck!
My son, a violinist of 9 years, is a terrific mando player! Frets are an intonation boon!
I started out on mandolin when I was young and then switched to fiddle after hearing a recording of S. Grappelli and became interested in jazz violin. When I go back to mandolin I revert back to old patterns. It is easier for me to swing on violin and to play off the cuff than on mandolin. Violin is so much more versatile, but it is nice we have both mandolin & violin.
The mandolin is a wonderful instrument which has the advantage of not having a fixed or ideal form. The Gibson style used in bluegrass is a who;e different instrument from the Italian bowlback, and there are an infinite number of variations in between those two poles. So you can get a huge range of tonality variations.
And for not much money. The absolute top of the line professional classical mandolins will top out at under $10K, and professional quality bowlbacks can be had for less than 2K, sometimes much less. The Gibson-style instruments can go higher, with examples from well-liked modern makers topping out around 25K. But again, you can go pro for much less. The occasional $200 sleeper is not unheard-of, but it takes time, knowledge and luck to score something worthy at that price.
There are world-class performers in the classical mandolin arena, nearly all of whom are approachable and many who provide workshops and lessons at various venues. It's sort of like being able to email Perlman, and go to his workshop once or twice a year. Amazing access.
A great resource can be found at mandolincafe.com. Covers all the bases, from luthierie to bluegrass, classical, old-time, jazz . . . pretty much anything mandolin can be, and is, discussed.
There's a silly (but talented) Japanese band from the early 90s called Tama that has me wanting a mandolin, especially after having grown up listening to this song and realizing recently that it's a mandolin that he's playing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLmqfLptvXE
I can pluck the whole thing out on my violin, which is nice, but I bet a mandolin sounds nicer thanks to the frets.
If only I had a few hundred dollars to burn, and a better excuse to burn it...
The true or original "mandolin" is a beautiful instrument that has several similarities with respect to the violin : its tuning is G, D, A, E and most important, its scale, which is the same as that in the violin. The scale is the distance from the bridge to the nut. In the violin and in the true mandoline it is about 13 inches.
About its name, very few people know that the term "mandolin" comes from the Italian language : It means "piccola mandorla" which in turn means "little almond" in English. The true mandolin is a bowl back mandolin which has the shape of an almond (i. e. bowl back).
Also, the true mandolin can be considered as the "sister" of the violin in the following sense : Both instruments are chiefly melody instruments, that is, they are principally used homophonically. In the true mandolin, as in the violin, one plays melodies leaving the chord part to other accompanying instruments like the guitar or the banjo. Most important, because of the scale being the same, a fiddler can switch instantly to the true mandolin and keep the same left hand technique (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. positions). This is a great plus ! His/Her hand has already been "calibrated" in the violin. I am using the term "true mandolin" (or italian mandolin) to emphasize the difference of this instrument with respect to the "american mandolin".
The american mandolin (Gibson, Collins, etc.) as it is known in the USA is not in fact a mandolin. Yes, it uses four pairs of strings tuned as G, D, A, E and that's about it. It is a flat back instrument (so there is no "almond" here), and it has a different scale with respect to the violin/true mandolin. It is 14 inches instead of 13". This means, for example, that when one tries to play in the 1st position a D in the G string, A in the D string, E in the A string and B in the E string using in every case the fourth finger (pinky), he/she will find that those notes are farther away than the same notes in a violin or in a true mandolin. It also means that one will have to strech the fingers to reach those notes, and for those players with small hands, this difference in scale is a pain in the neck, so the left hand technique previously learned in the violin will not be too useful, unfortunately.
The real truth behind the american mandolin is that it was designed to be an instrument to play chords on it basically, and that is the reason of the difference in the scale : It has to be longer than 13" in order to accomodate the fingers to play chords, a thing that one doesn't need to do with the violin or the true mandolin.
In other words, the american mandolin is not the "sister" of the violin. Perhaps this peculiar instrument can be considered as the sister of the banjo or the guitar. Yes, one can play melodies and "classical music" in the american mandolin, but this is much easier in the true (or italian) mandolin which, by the way, sounds louder and sweeter than the flat american mandolin.
It is a big pitty that the italian (or classical or true) mandolin has virtually disappeared in the USA giving up its place to the american mandolin. Playing "Santa Lucia" or "Torna a Surrento" or "Oh Sole Mio" in the italian mandolin is a bliss, specially if one uses the "tremolo" in the right hand. Yes, one can play these beautiful songs on the american mandolin, but they will not sound the same. Of course, the american mandolin is a better choice than the italian mandolin to play country music, "bluegrass" and the like (nothing to do with the musical european heritage).
"The real truth behind the american mandolin is that it was designed to be an instrument to play chords on it basically, and that is the reason of the difference in the scale : It has to be longer than 13" in order to accomodate the fingers to play chords, a thing that one doesn't need to do with the violin or the true mandolin."
Rubbish. Go ask Orville Gibson about that.
"Rubbish. Go ask Orville Gibson about that"
Ok, I will go ask Orville Gibson about that, but only if you will go ask Antonio Vivaldi about the 14" scale when he composed his concertos for mandolin.
In the mean time, could you explain the rationale behind the 14" scale length versus the 13" ?
I don't know that, either--you'll have to ask Orville ;-)
I know you don't know.
OK in all seriousness, I don't think it is accurate to characterize the Gibson style mandolin--what you call "American"--as being optimized for chord playing to the detriment of single lines. In fact the great body of bluegrass as well as old time playing (the latter seeming in general to prefer round or oval hole Gibsons rather than F5 and derivatives) is full of virtuosic melody. Yes, in bluegrass you have a percussive "chop" chord but this is also true of the fiddle player.
Furthermore the modern practitioners of bluegrass mandolin are extremely virtuosic--Bush, Thile, Marshall, Grisman, Simpkins etc etc. To say it is "optimized for chords" is like saying that guitars are for chords--true, but misleading and incomplete.
As for the possible reasons for the longer scale length, again that is lost in the mists of time perhaps, but what we know is that the longer scale gives the top strings better presence--no flabbiness. It is subtle but of course there is a difference. But there are "American" archtop mandos with 12.88" scales (like a fiddle).
Why was the post baroque violin taken to a longer scale? Everyone says because of a higher concert pitch--but that makes no sense--following logic, they would have *shortened* the neck for a higher concert pitch. Maybe it is "known" or maybe it is all conjecture. What we can say is that it affects the sound.
Finally as for the difficulty of the 14" scale: as a rank amateur, I'm sure I'd have an easier time if my fiddle and my mandolin were the same, and yet it doesn't slow Sam Bush down one bit in either direction :-)
No worse than playing the viola anyway...
I agree with you.
The Gibson type mandolin is a great instrument in its own right. You can play melodic lines and not only chords on it. Perhaps my point is that we should not visualize this instrument through the eyes of the italian mandolin. They are different instruments, so using the same name to refer to both of them can be misleading. And as for the 14" scale, you are right ... it should not be worse than playing the viola.
I still believe that the italian mandolin sounds better, specially in the A and E strings, probably due to its larger space volume.
Hi Juan,
Yes and I agree with you, too that the term "Mandolin" being applied to all of them hardly is a fair for the reasons you describe. And yet at the same time, it is good that they are all "mandolins" as there is a lot to be learned one camp from another. Besides, there are a number of other varieties of the mandolin which we haven't yet discussed which have their own special sounds as well. I am thinking of the "bandolin" of Ecuador and Colombia--tuned in 4ths but same range as mandolin, and the 12 and 16 string mandolinos of Brasil, and on and on.
Mike Marshall has played and toured extensively in South America and there are some fantastic recordings with other great South American mandolinists...have you seen them?
Hi Bill,
No, I haven't heard Mike Marshall yet, but I had an opportunity to listen to Sebastiaan de Grebber playing Bach's Fugue (BWV 1001). You can enjoy this in :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqcEszi5acs&NR=1
I am impressed by the beauty of the treble register in his mandolin !
I already saw Sam Bush as per your comments on him. He is indeed great.
You are right ... there are quite a few number of different types of mandolins in South America and everybody plays them differently. I have listened to many of them and there is always so many things to learn !
I am a collector of fine mandolins. I have one F from Ibanez (they don't make it anymore) and Two A's (Alvarez). I also have three beautiful bowl back mandolins and Austin Clark is building for me an A mandolin with a 328 mm scale. My father taught me to play the mandolin when I was 5 years old. Now I am 66 and still in love with this instrument and with my violins.
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December 15, 2005 at 03:03 PM · My son has a Mandolin that he got last year. Yes, it is the same tuning as the violin, and you can pretty much just "think" on it like as violin. It is fun.
But to play it at all well takes some real attention to technique. It is discouraging if you don't get the basics right. The strings are very tight, it is difficult to get a good sound if you don't learn how to apply adequate pressure just behind the frets.
Interesting that among bluegrass fiddle players, there is a lot of cross-over with the mandolin.
Mike Marshall is best known for Mandolin, but he also plays the fiddle and the guitar (and really well!)
Sam bush alternates between Mandolin and fiddle, as does Rickie Simpkins.
Outside of bluegrass the mandolin is not well-known. And yet 80 years ago, there were many Mandolin Orchestras playing classical reperetoire.