That description is reserved for having the two strings on each of the bottom two courses
It's tuning is, it is true, an octave below the mandolin, but that just means that it is in the modern Tenor Instrument range. It is a Mandola because that is the family instrument. It is not and cannot be a Mandolin - it is not a small version of anything. I can feel waves of strong feeling now! What it is and isn't The slightly longer, bigger instrument is a Tenor Mandola. So, the Mandola is properly Alto, Treble, CGDA as it has always (mostly) been. Given this, it appears that what we have is a re-emergence of a Tenor instrument of the Mandola family. Previously it had only been the Bass instrument. The Tenor tuning dropped out of popularity when the Viola family range was rationalised with the Violincello taking the higher register into the Tenor range. There were three violas, for the viola, by a different route, pre-dates the Mandola: The modern Tenor range has dropped this by one tone. There was a smaller and a larger bodied and length Viola, both tuned to CGDA and called Alto and Tenor. The parallel with the violin family which the Mandola mirrored is well documented. Treble and Alto are the same range - CGDA and in the 16th c, Tenor was the same range too, but a different size. The Italians, for it was they, developed a soprano version of the Mandorla and added the typical Italian diminutive - ino hence Mandolino which became Mandolin. The original instrument of the family is the Mandore, a small treble lute which became the Mandorla so named because of its shape. Well, here are the facts, a suggestion and at the end of it all call it what you will but make sure the other person understands. Is it an Octave Mandola? an Octave Mandolin? What is the instrument that is the shape and size of a mandola, maybe a tad longer, tuned GDAE an octave below a mandolin? It is often used in traditional English and Irish music. Length it is a Mandola - tuned to octave mandolin, or by tuning, it is a mandolin, but an octave lower. There is some controversy over whether the scale length or the tuning determines the instrument name, therefore, by scale In more recent times, the Mandola is often seen re-tuned to the GDAE of mandolins, but an octave below. 
(image by kind permission of the Acoustic Music Company) Tenor Mandola ('Octave Mandola')- Tenor Violin.In fact the two families had matching counterparts: Traditional tuned a fifth below the mandolin, it mirrored the viola. A later, smaller mandola was developed and became known as a mandolina, which led to the mandolin. It is sometimes said that the Mandola was originally a simpler 'beginners' Lute. The Mandola was a derivation of the Lute without the characteristic right-angle headstock. The Lute was introduced to Europe by the Moors.
#MANDOLA ITALIAN STRINGED INSTRUMENTS SKIN#
The common family is the Lute or al L'Ud - 'the wood ' because the soundboard wasn't skin like a banjo. Well before the mandolin anyway.Ī corruption of the word mandorla (almond in Italian) which describes its shape.
0 kommentar(er)
