Mandolin History
The modern mandolin is derived from the lute. It evolved between the 17th and 18th centuries in Italy. The mandolin is a type of small mandola. The word mandola is derived from a word meaning "almond" which was the shape of the early mandolas and mandolins. There are still many of these 19th and 20th century bowl back instruments around today. The Gibson company and Lloyd Loar helped to create the modern looking mandolins made without the bowl, or tator bug back shape. Some of these mandolins are highly prized and sell for thousands of dollars.
Mandolin From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family (plucked, or strummed). It is descended from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. It has a body with a teardrop-shaped soundboard, or one which is essentially oval in shape, with a soundhole, or soundholes, of varying shapes which are open and are not decorated with an intricately carved grille like the Baroque era mandolins.[1][2]
Originally mandolins had six double courses of gut strings tuned similarly to lutes, and plucked with the fingertips, while the design common today has eight metal strings in four pairs (courses) which are plucked with a plectrum. The latter originated in Naples, Italy during the 3rd quarter of the 18th century.
There were and still are many variants. These include Milanese, Lombard, Brescian and other 6-course types, as well as four-string (one string per course), twelve-string (three strings per course), and sixteen-string (four strings per course).
Mandolin construction
A mandolin's typically hollow wooden body has a neck with a flat (or slight radius) fretted fingerboard, a nut and floating bridge, a tailpiece or pinblock at the edge of the face to which the strings are attached, and mechanical tuning machines, rather than friction pegs, to accommodate metal strings. 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.
The small body also contributes to a relatively low sound volume relative to other instruments. Various amplification techniques have been used to overcome this. Hybridization with the louder banjo creates the mandolin-banjo, and resonators have been used, most notably by Dobro and the National String Instrument Corporation. Some musicians will even use electric mandolins played through guitar amplifiers.
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