Beautiful Mandolins

Mandolins are not only fun to play; many are real beauties as you can see here.

They form an extensive family of instruments with members in places like Italy, Brazil, India, Greece, the Balkans, the British Isles, the USA and others. They exist in a vast number of shapes, sizes and tunings from the piccolo mandolin’s c’ g’ d’’ a’’ to the mandocello which is tuned C G d a. And they are used in folk music as well as in classical music and in jazz.

Most mandolin instruments have double strings, usually tuned in unison, rarely in octaves with the low string above the high string as opposed to the 12-string guitar.

Every now and then, it is debatable to which group a particular instrument belongs. You can read lots of academic papers about the characteristics of mandolin instruments and citterns (citherns) and how to distinguish them. Then again, you may look at instruments in museums, in workshops, or in the hands of musicians – and time and again you’ll find mutual influences between the two families.

There’s only one thing that’s sure: ex oriente lux. The short-necked plucked lutes were developed in the East. Mesopotamia, to be exact.

Common mandolin types include:

The Neapolitan Mandolin

This venerable bowl-backed member of the family is used Italian and Greek folk music as well as in orchestras and classical ensembles. It has been a favourite of the German Wandervogel movement in the beginning of the 20th century as a portable alternative to the guitar. In the USA these instruments were called tater bug.

The flat-top Mandolin

The flat-back mandolin is easier to build and easier to play and was developed in the USA in the late 19th century. The very successful Gibson Army-Navy  mandolin was flat-topped as well as flat-backed. High class instruments of this type are today built in the USA under the brand name Weber.

The Celtic Mandolin

The onion-shaped Celtic mandolin  is the instrument of choice for British folk musicians. The design is also used for mandolins, mandolas, octave mandolins and Irish bouzoukis. 

Pocket Mandolins

They usually have a flat top and a flat back, although there are some round-backs (with nylgut strings), usually from Sicily. In Italy these small instrument are called mandolino tascabile, and they are hard to find nowadays. They will probably become popular again because of the growing hostilities of (European) airlines against musicians.

The carved-top Mandolin 

There are two distinctive shapes called the A and the F model. Both were developed by Orville Gibson around 1900.  The A model is symmetrical and teardrop-shaped. The F (Florentine) model has two points on the lower body, a decorative scroll near the neck and usually a scroll carved into the headstock. A-4 and F-4 have oval sound holes, while A-5 and F-5 have two f-shaped sound holes like a violin.

Special Mandolins

• The french mandolin Gelas has a double top. The top of the soundbox is only visible on the bottom half. This box runs all the way to the neck, and has its own sound-hole. A second piece of wood runs over the top-half of the box to the neck.
• The mandriola has 4 courses of 3 strings and was played mostly in Germany. The middle string of the G and D courses may be an octave above the others (which makes it nearly impossible to play melodies without sounding out of tune).
• The mandolinetto is a guitar-shaped mandolin. It first appeared around 1900 and was popular in the UK and the USA in the first part of the 20th century. 

Then there are harp mandolins with and without sympathetic strings, models with two or three necks, lyre mandolins, mandolins with violin bodies, and bowl-backs with an aluminum body, and …

More…

If you want to spend some time gazing at beautiful things, visit my collection of mandolins & relatives on Pinterest.