Talk:Mandolin

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[edit] Pop Culture/Trivia?

Should there be any mention of famous fictional mandolin players in literature, t.v. etc? Possibly Captain Corelli? 125.236.41.114 (talk) 04:27, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

With the factual popular culture section the length it is? I would suggest cutting that down a bit first. --90.240.226.219 (talk) 23:01, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Mandolin and early 90s music

I think just about every 90s alt rock band used a mandolin...

[edit] Japan

I wrote an article about the mandolin in Japan. Can I add this? Please correct anything if I'm wrong ;)

The mandolin stir a boom when Raffaele Calace visited to Japan in 1924. And still there is a lot of Mandolin Orchestra.
Mandolin Orchestra in Japan consists of Mandolin(1st, 2nd), Mandola Tenore(Octave Mandola, not Tenor Mandola), Mandocello, Guitar, and Double Bass. Mandolone, Flute, Clarinet and Timpani are sometimes used in several orchestras. There is a lot of Published scores of mandolin-original and mandolin-orchestrated, which are easy to get.

Kcrt 00:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photo

Can we get a better photo? I'm sorry, but the one featured here is awful.

--also, the photo labeled Example of an A4-style mandolin (oval hole) is missing. Does it point to a non-existent hyperlink?

[edit] History of the mandolin in the US

Can anyone say when the Figaro Spanish Students had their tour in the US? It would also be interesting if someone could pipe up with the history of the mandolin orchestras -- while I've heard that numerous such groups existed, I know nothing about them. --- Eirikr 09:01, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

According to Paul Sparks in the Classical Mandolin, they debuted on January 2, 1880 in New York City.

Jim

I did some research and found the original NY Times articles, which say that they arrived in New York on January 2, 1880, but then they went to Boston for awhile. If I remember correctly, they returned to NY to play at Booth's Theatre, starting February 3, in the Humpty Dumpty variety show. I'm working on Carlo(s) Curti's biography now... Dickson.jean 22:00, 3 December 2007 (UTC) Jean

[edit] Needs Non-US material

This article is too US-Centric right now. It needs information on mandolin music from Europe and Latin America (esp Brazil and choro). I'll take a stab at moving the US material to a separate section and adding some information on Brazil. Hopefully someone who knows better can edit it if i mess up the format. --- glauber 10Aug05 19:37 UTC

Here's a good article on the history of the mandolin: http://mandolincafe.com/archives/briefhistory.html --- glauber 19:23, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, needs a section on how it was played in its country of origin, Italy. Also spread to the Venetian sphere of influence (all the way down both coasts and islands of the Adriatic and Ionian Seas). In other words, parts of Slovenia, Croatia, Albania, Greece. Use in serenades and cantatas.

The mandolin as used in Central Asia. I saw a concert of music from Turkmenistan in Chicago. Lo and behold, a mandolin and accordeon duet. As mandolin spread around the world, replaced indigenous instruments? All this could be included.

I added a very brief comment on modern bluegrass mandolin in central Europe. Someone who knows this better than me should expand it! User:blauwkoe

I would question if the banner is still needed. The article is multifaceted and no longer US centric. User:amram99

[edit] Sustained notes

"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 is paricularly on acoustic versions, right? On electrcic Mandolins (I beleive they do exist and perhaps sould there fore be added to the article), this tremolo can be replaced by a guitar-style sustain pedal.

You are partly right. I have an electric one and I have used a guitar sustain pedal on this with fairly good effect. But not as good as the guitar, possibly because of the difference in the frequency ranges. As far as I remember, the sustain on the lower strings (which have freqencies matching that of guitar was better than the higher ones (with much higher frequencies than that of guitar) - Wikicheng 04:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

I've clarified this a little since the tremolo "creates" a form of sustain rather then emulating a violin. By the way, the sustain of the lower strings on a top quality mandolin is surprisngly good for its size. Ophir 01:05, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

If you have a good look at the photo already in the article, you'll see that the flat mandolin there has a pickup, volume and tone controls. It works very well both acoustically and amplified, and has in practice replaced both the electric mandolin I once used and the acoustic mandolin also pictured. It has also been used very successfully with distortion (the "tube blaster" imput of a 40w Ross combo amplifier) for one particular song that one of my rock trios did. Andrewa 16:48, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mandoline Food Slicer

Wikipedia redirects Mandoline (type of food slicer) to Mandolin (musical instrument). There really should be an article (at least a stub) about that...


MANDOLIN FOOD SLICER - agree, definitely needs this definition and short description! Usually mandoline [French, from Italian mandolino mandolin] : a kitchen utensil with a blade for slicing and shredding

There are instances of the instrument being spelled "mandoline". Perhaps a disambig notice on the top of the page would be more appropriate? Especially since the food slicer itself is sometimes spelled "mandolin"... For reference's sake, the food slicer's page is Mandolin (cooking). Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 19:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
There is now a proper article entitled Mandoline which is about the cooking tool. I placed a disambig notice at the top of this page pointing to it. Mandolin is an alternate spelling of mandoline, but the latter is proper. I will be working on merging the article Mandolin (cooking) with Mandoline and then deleting the former. Is everything clear?  :) Aguerriero (ţ) (ć) (ë) 17:39, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mandolin Family

Anyone have any pictures of these other mando types? I'd love to see a bass and a piccolo for instance, but I'm very unlikely to find them on my own.

Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 08:14, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Also, there's a distinction made in the History section between the mandora and the mandola, and the mandolino and the mandolin, but there's no real description as to how these differ. Does anyone have any more details, or even better some pictures, that could illustrate how these are not the same things?

Thanks! Eiríkr Útlendi 07:18, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

When I tackled this article, most all of it was a copy and paste from a 'mandobanjo' website. It is not laid out very well, tends to ramble and does not stick to the subject of mandolins. Anyhow, to do my part, I replaced a section in the history part. I believe it gives a succinct account of the mandolin's origin. The facts- names, places and years- are footnoted. Afterwards, It became apparent that the beginning of the article had to be re-written since there was really no definition of a mandolin. So I did this (footnoted also). Now as for the question left in the sandbox regarding mandolinos and mandoras, I will leave it to another to rewrite the definitions and histories of those instruments. When that is done, there will be no need to add to the mandolin's definition to try to expain why it is different from these similiar instruments. (basically, however, they are at a different tonal range, among other things). S. D. 12:16, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Stephen! That helps me understand a bit better. Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 19:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ireland

"Also, the competitive attitude of many old-time and bluegrass musicians is unwelcome in the cooperative and musically courteous environment of the Irish session; Irish musicians often perceive the bluegrasser as trying to force the session into becoming a bluegrass "jam"."

I don't think the above paragraph is neutral enough. Well-played bluegrass music is typically highly arranged with varied instrumental breaks which rarely drown out the vocal harmonies. I just don't see how these perceptions are useful in the context of the mandolin. It might be more appropriate to delete the whole paragraph than upset the players with stereotyping!

I also feel that the bulk of the bluegrass-related information (some of which is repeated) could be left out and is possibly harder to maintain in this article. The mandolin (in bluegrass music) is undoubtedly a rich subject but this could be trimmed down a lot. Ophir 01:05, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Agree that the paragraph is not neutral - should be removed. As a mandolin player, I have always found bluegrass jams to be pretty cooperative and curteous - a communal affair really (and I am not a very good player) not sure the basis for the comments in the paragraph are all that accurate or objective.

Thanks. Duly noted and removed. Ophir 17:06, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Victorian Stage

I've found an example of the mandolin being used to accompany a song in an otherwise straight play in Broken Hearts (W.S. Gilbert, music by Edward German) but am not sure if this was common. Think it's worth investigation? 88.109.193.255 20:39, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What's with the Ottomans?

I read that "The mandolin has been long played in the Hellenic Islands, where the Ottoman Empire did not control"

True as this statement may be, what is the relationship between the mandolin and the Ottoman Empire? Did the Ottomans have something against the mandolin? This seems like a non-sequiter to me.


(If retained, the grammmar should be corrected to "... which the Ottoman Empire did not control."

[edit] Continental Europe section sorely lacking

The entirety of the European history of the mandolin is the "recent interest" in bluegrass? Italy anyone?--GoHawks4 06:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree, I came here looking to find the names of good Italian mandolin players but there isn't anything about Italy after the invention of the instrument. Andropod (talk) 22:59, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] need reliable sources

I moved these from the article. These are not Wikipedia:Reliable sources, they are just webpages that people submitted unsourced information to.


Levon Helm of The Band, "Levon Helm played both drums and mandolin" (-reference-)
Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, "Jimmy Page wrote the music on a mandolin he borrowed from John Paul Jones. He had never played the mandolin before." (-reference-)

[edit] players....

this article should have a list of some well known mandolin players like Chris Thile, Bill Monroe, Ronnie McCoury, etc. Piratebob13 07:32, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

A vandal has removed a large chunk of the article I will try to restore that. Also, Category:Mandolinists may already serve that need. -MrFizyx 18:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I've restored what was here. You can readd that names that you suggested (which frankly are more significant to then instrument than the names others have added). I would rather get rid of the list though and encourage editors to use the category. -MrFizyx 18:38, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tubular bells

I thought the 'mandolin' on tubular bells was actually a guitar that sounded like a mandolin? 131.111.8.104

[edit] Paul Hooper

Several edits have been undertaken by anon poster 211.30.252.154 to incorporate the above player into the article. The initial edits were too subjective and I reverted them. S/he has since tried to reinsert the edits although with toned down hyperboles. So far, I have left the edits under the subheading "Popular musicians who play mandolin" although this is not quite the correct place to have this. Does someone know whether this player is notable and should be included in the entry? If not, please feel free to delete the addition. --Nuttycoconut 03:43, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tuning

Isn't 440.0 Hz A4 (and not A3)? 24.178.185.123 (talk) 15:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Who wrote about mandolins in japan?

The line 'of course japanese tend to make group' especially piqued my interest. Is that something that can be cited, or just a zany generalization? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.100.203.233 (talk) 20:20, 9 February 2008 (UTC)