Mandolin
From Freepedia
A mandolin is a stringed musical instrument. The number and type of strings found on mandolins has varied over time and place. Today, the predominant configuration is that of the Neapolitan mandolin, with four courses of metal strings. Each pair of strings is tuned in unison, and are a fifth apart from adjacent pairs, giving an identical tuning to a violin (G-D-A-E low-to-high). Unlike a violin, the fingerboard of a mandolin is fretted and it is typically played with a flat pick (a plectrum).
In Indian classical music and Indian light music, the 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 the relative pitch between the strings to E-B-E-B can be used.
Some guitarists tune a mandolin in fourths, the same as the bottom four guitar strings (E-A-D-G) or the top four guitar strings (D-G-B-E) allowing the same fingerings as a guitar.
The mandolin was first built in early 18th century, and was descended from the mandora, a small lute used in the 16th century.
Like the guitar, the mandolin is a poorly sustaining instrument. A note cannot be maintained for an arbitrary time as with a violin. Its higher pitch makes this problem more severe than with the guitar, and as a result, use of tremolo (rapid picking on a single note) is sometimes used to emulate a sustained note. This technique works particularly well with a mandolin's paired strings, where in tremolo picking one of the pair is sounding while the other is being struck by the pick, giving a more continuous sound than a single coursed instrument can.
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Mandolin forms
Mandolins come in several forms. The Neapolitan style, known as a round-back or bowl-back, 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, a flat-back style is derived from the cittern. Another form has a banjo-style body. Other 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.In the early twentieth century, another new mandolin-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 who founded the Gibson company in 1902. Gibson mandolins evolved into two families: the F-style, which has a scroll near the neck and two points on the right side; and the A-style, which is pear shaped and has no points. These styles generally have either two f-shaped soundholes like a violin or an oval sound hole directly under the strings. Naturally, there is much variation among makers, and different styles exist as well, but these are the most common. The F-hole, F-style mandolins are considered the most typical and traditional for playing American Bluegrass music, while A-style with oval hole is generally more appropriate for Irish, folk, or classical music. This classification is mostly for optical/esthetical reasons as most people will admit that there is no difference in sound between a model with or without a scroll (other things like soundholes being equal).
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.
Mandolin family
Larger versions of the mandolin are the mandola (a fifth below the mandolin, as the viola is below the violin), the octave mandolin (an octave below the mandolin), and the mandocello, which is tuned an octave plus a fifth below the mandolin (like a cello). All of these have 8 strings tuned in unison pairs. In the early part of the 20th century Gibson also made a mando-bass, which has 4 strings and is tuned like a upright bass.
Mandolin music
Mandolins have a long history and much early music was written for them. In the first half of the 20th century, they enjoyed a period of great popularity in Europe and the Americas as an easier approach to playing string music. Many professional and amateur mandolin groups and orchestras were formed to play traditional string repertory. Just as this practice was falling into disuse, the mandolin found a new niche in American country, old-time music, bluegrass and folk music. More recently, the Baroque and Classical mandolin repertory and styles have benefited from the raised awareness of and interest in Early music.
Mandolin history
Mandolins evolved from the Lute family in Italy during the 17th -18th centuries, and the deep bowled mandolin produced particularly in Naples became a common type in the19th century. The original instrument was the mandola ( mandorla is almond in Italian and describes the instrument body shape) and evolved in the 15th century from the lute. A later, smaller mandola was developed and became known as a mandolina.
The 20th century saw the rise in popularity of the mandolin for celtic, bluegrass, jazz and classical styles. Much of the development of the mandolin from neapolitan bowl back to the flat back style is thanks to Orville Gibson (1856 - 1918) and Lloyd Loar, his chief designer.
Further back, around 15,000 - 8,000 BC, single stringed instruments have been seen in cave paintings. They were bowed, struck and plucked. From these, the families of instruments developed. Single strings were long and gave a single melody line. To shorten the scale length, other strings were added with a different tension so one string took over where another left off. In turn, this led to being able to play diads and chords. The bowed family became the rabob, rebec and then the fiddle becoming the violin and modern family by 1520 (incidentally also in Naples). The plucked family led to lute-like instruments in 2000 BC Mesopotamia, and developed into the Oud or Ud before appearing in Spain in 711 courtesy of the Moors.
Over the next centuries, frets were added and the strings doubled to courses leading to the first Lute appearing in the 13th Century. The history of the Lute and the Mandolin are intertwined from this point. The Lute gained a 5th course by the 15th century, a 6th a century later and up to 13 courses in its heyday. As early as the 14th century a miniature Lute or Mandora appeared. Similar to the mandola, it had counterparts in Arab countries (Dambura) and Assyria (Pandura). From this, the Mandolino (a small gut strung Mandola with 6 strings tuned g b e' a' d g sometimes called the Baroque Mandolin and played with a quill, wooden plectrum or finger-style) was developed in several places in Italy but seems to have became known as the Mandolin in early 18th century (around 1735) Naples.
The 'modern' often termed Neapolitan mandolin (bowl-back, 4 course paired metal strings) appeared about 100 years later in around 1830. The style was adopted and developed by others, notably in Rome giving two distinct but similar types of mandolin - Neapolitan and Roman. Many of the best players chose the Roman made mandolins. The development of the Mandolino in Rome seems to have followed a slightly different course from that in Naples with many innovations of the Mandolina and later the Mandolin.
Classic 'modern' mandolins were made by the Vinaccia family (mid-1700s onwards) in direct continuance from their mandolinos, and Calace (1863 - onwards) in Naples and Luigi Embergher (1856 - 1943), Ferrari family (1716 - onwards also originally mandolino makers) and De Santi (1834 - 1916) in Rome. It is widely accepted that the evolution of the mandolin to the modern style is attrfibuted to the Vinaccia family.
The United States of America
The mandolin's popularity in the United States was spurred by the success of a group of touring European musicians known as the Figaro Spanish Students. Ironically, this ensemble did not play mandolins but rather bandurrias, which are also small, double-strung instruments superficially resembling the mandolin. The success of the Figaro Spanish Students spawned several groups who imitated their musical style and colorful costumes. In many cases, the players in these new musical ensembles were Italian-born Americans who had brought mandolins from their native land. Thus, the Spanish Student imitators did primarily play mandolins and helped to generate enormous public interest in an instrument that previously was relatively unknown in the United States.
Mandolins were a fad instrument from the turn of the century to the mid-twenties. Instruments were marketed by teacher-dealers, much as the title character in the popular musical The Music Man. Often these teacher-dealers would conduct mandolin orchestras: groups of 4-50 musicians who would play various mandolin family instruments together. The instrument was primarily used in an ensemble setting well into the 1930s.
The use of a single mandolin in a band was popularized by Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass music. Bill Monroe famously played Gibson F5 mandolin, signed and dated July 9, 1923, by Lloyd Loar, chief acoustic engineer at Gibson. The F5 has since become the most imitated tonally and aesthetically by modern builders. Monroe's style involved playing lead melodies in the style of a fiddler, and also a percussive chording sound referred to as "the chop" for the sound that is made by the quickly struck and muted strings.
Jethro Burns, best known as half of the comedy duo Homer and Jethro, was also the first important jazz mandolinist. Tiny Moore popularized the mandolin in Western swing music. He initially played an 8-string Gibson but switched after 1952 to a 5-string solidbody electric instrument built by Paul Bigsby. Modern virtuosos David Grisman, Sam Bush and Mike Marshall, among others, have worked since the early 1970s to demonstrate the mandolin's versatility for all styles of music. Chris Thile of California is the best-known of the younger generation of players; the band Nickel Creek features his virtuoso playing in its blend of traditional and pop styles.
A handful of rock musicians use mandolins. One example is Tim Brennan of the Irish-American punk rock band Dropkick Murphys. In addition to electric guitar, bass, and drums, the band uses several instruments associated with traditional Celtic music, including mandolin, tin whistle, and Great Highland bagpipes. The band explains that these instruments accentuate the growling sound they favor. The 1991 R.E.M. hit "Losing My Religion" also featured a simple mandolin lick played by guitarist Peter Buck.
The United Kingdom
Mandolin is featured in the playing of Matt Bellamy in the modern band Muse, and of course was introduced very clearly by Vivian Stanshall on Mike Oldfield's album "Tubular Bells" and was a major feature of some the work done by the British band Lindisfarne who had the biggest selling UK album of 1971-1972.
Ireland
The mandolin is becoming a more common instrument among Irish traditional musicians. Tunes originally created by fiddle players in standard tuning are relatively accessible for quick apprehension by a mandolin player because of the identical fingering by the left hand (for right-handed players - vice versa for left-handed players). In recent decades, plucked instruments like the mandolin have become common session instruments by melody and rhythm players.
Although each of the different types of non-electrified mandolin can fit into Irish traditional music, many players prefer flat-backed instruments with oval sound holes rather than bowl-back mandolins or those with f-holes similar to the type seen on violins. Instruments built by British luthier Stefan Sobell are among the most favored mandolins for Irish traditional music, although many other makers also build instruments well suited to that genre.
Many American bluegrass mandolin players and mandolinists from many backgrounds have discovered that Irish traditional music is an ideal stepping stone to another channel of discovery and creativity on the mandolin. However, the Irish style and rhythm of playing jigs and reels is quite distinct from bluegrass and old-time mandolin, and requires some amount of effort and listening to learn properly. Chord-strumming on the mandolin (particularly bluegrass-style "chop" strumming) does not blend well in an Irish traditional music setting.
Great players include Andy Irvine, Mick Moloney, Paul Kelly, and Claudine Langille.
Brazil
The mandolin (called "bandolim") has a long and rich tradition in Brazilian folk music, especially in the style called choro. The composer and mandolin virtuoso Jacob do Bandolim did much to popularize the instrument, and his influence continues to the present day. Some contemporary mandolin players in Brazil include Jacob's disciple Deo Rian, and Armandinho (the former, a traditional choro-style player, the latter an eclectic innovator).
The mandolin came into Brazil by way of Portugal. Portuguese music has a long tradition of mandolin-like instruments (see, for example, the Portuguese guitar).
The mandolin is used almost exclusively as a melody instrument in Brazilian folk music - the role of chordal accompanyment being taken over by the cavaquinho and nylon-strung guitar. Its popularity, therefore, has risen and fallen with instrumental folk music styles, especially choro. The later part of the 20th century saw a renaissance of choro in Brazil, and with it, a revival of the country's mandolinistic tradition.
Mandolin players
Renowned modern mandolinists include David 'Dawg' Grisman, Mike Marshall, Sam Bush, Chris Thile Mike Compton and Simon Mayor - all of whom revolutionized the use of the instrument through the incorporation of various styles such as bluegrass, newgrass, classical and jazz. U. Srinivas (popularly known as mandolin Srinivas) was a child prodigy who plays Indian Classical Music on the mandolin. Famous electric mandolin players include Canadian Nash the Slash and Todd Macdonald of art folk group The Winks.
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External links
- A Brief History of the Mandolin (by Rob Meador and Dan Beimborn)
- Mandolin Cafe
- Mandolin Archive
- Mandolin Magazine
Categories: Limited geographic scope | Articles to be expanded | String instruments | Necked bowl lutes | Carnatic music instruments
