I am planning on buying some fretted instrument tuned in fifths very soon. I have searched this board and found a lot of good info (thanks). One issue that hasn’t come up is the difference between f-holes and round sound holes, and how this affects sound. I always think of f-hole mandolins being more for bluegrass music and round holed mandolins for old time and ITM.
Any thoughts on this? I did get to play a trinity College Bouzouki which I liked, though it seemed like the long scale length of an octave or mandola would be more useful. The Bouzouki with its round hole and lighter gauge string had a guitary feel and sound to it. I tried a tenor banjo and liked the scale length but not the timbre.
If anyone has any comments re Mandola v. Octave Mando, please weigh in.
In general, an arch-top instrument with f-holes will have a darker, punchier, more complex tone than one with a round hole. Flat-top instruments will be brighter-sounding and have more sustain, often at the expense of lower frequencies. That being said, you can play any kind of mando for any kind of music, unless you hang with bluegrass wankers who make fun of you if you don’t have an F5.
I remember a post from years and years ago on Mandolin Cafe, to the effect that the unique tone of oval-hole Gibson mandolins comes from them being “flawed” acoustically. There’s this big gap in an area where the top “should” be vibrating, whereas f-holes are out towards the edge and don’t interfere as much with the vibration. Which is why fiddles don’t have round soundholes.
As for mandola vs. octave mando vs. bouzouki, well, it depends on what you want to use it for. Long-scale instruments have more sproing than thump; they’re great for strumming chords and other accompanimenty things. Shorter-scale ones like the TC octave mando are much easier for playing tunes on, but they lack that lovely jangly sound.
Standard tuning for a mandola is a fifth below a mandolin, CGDA. It’s less useful for Irish music, although it’s my personal favorite of the mandolin family.
Damn, Rob, we have GOT to have a CGDA session some day. I play my viola at home as much as I do my fiddle these days. Add a couple of Pat’s little G bamboo flutes, and we’ll alto our way into the wee, wee hours (or is that the “wee wee hours?”). Up the middle voices! Cheers,
You’d be welcome to have a bash on mine, in the meantime. Let me know if you’re going to turn up at any parties down in you-know-where, and I’ll bring all the alto instruments I can haul. I know another viola driver who’d gladly lump in…hippie-looking bloke, redacted fingers, plays backwards. Perhaps you know him? Cheers,
If you can tell the difference by sound, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.
But yes, you have the associations correct. ‘Celtic’ mandocritters tend to be round-holed, except for Freshwaters which have a nifty but complex cut-out celtic knotwork ‘hole’, that probably makes it really difficult to fit a pickup.
It’s worth hairsplitting to point out that North American and European nomenclature does not agree when it comes to the word ‘mandola’; North America, following Orville Gibson, draws the analogy between viola and mandola, with octave mandolin and mondocello being identically pitched a fourth lower. Europeans have tended to equate octave mando and mandola. I don’t know what, if anything, they’d call a mandobeastie a fifth below mandolin pitch.
As a former resident of both Ireland and Germany, I tend very strongly towards Europhile sentiments. That said, this is one area where the Europeans have it dead wrong. I’ve always felt that the mandolin family instruments should recapitulate the violins as far as nomenclature is concerned. The name octave mandolin has the virtue of being so descriptive as to preclude misunderstanding. Calling an octave mandolin a mandola is just plain daft. Cheers,
Guess I need to get a mandola now, hm?