The Mandolin In History
The mandolin can be described as
a small, short-necked lute with
eight strings. A lute is a
chordophone, an instrument
which makes sound by the
vibration of strings. As a
descendent of the lute, the
mandolin reaches back to some of
the earliest musical instruments.
Deep in the grottos of France are
beautiful cave paintings made
between 15,000 BC and 8500 BC.
These paintings include one of a
man with what appears to be a
simple one-stringed instrument
that is being played with a bow.
This musical bow represents the
first stringed instruments man
invented. They were played by
plucking the string with the
fingers, and later by tapping the
string with a stick. An increase in
volume was first gained by holding
the bow in the mouth. Later,
gourds were attached to the bow
to act as resonators.
Lute-like chordophones appear as
early as 2000 BC in Mesopotamia.
These early instruments were
fretless. Changes in pitch were
made by pressing the strings
down onto the neck of the
instrument. The strings were
sometimes plucked by using hard
objects or plectrums rather than
the fingers as the plectrums or
picks produced a louder, sharper,
sound than the fingers.
By the Seventh Century AD a folk
lute called the oud was in use. The
oud remains in use today, virtually
unchanged, in the music of the
Near East, particularly in Armenia
and Egypt. 'Oud' is the Arabic
name for wood, and the oud is a
wooden lute. The oud found its
way into Spain during the Moorish
conquest of Spain (711- 1492), to
Venice through coastal trade, and
to Europe through returning
Crusaders (around 1099).
In a gallery in Washington, a
painting by Agnelo Gaddi (1369-
1396) depicts an angel playing a
miniature lute called the mandora.
The miniature lute was probably
contrived to fill out the scale of
16th century lute ensembles. The
Assyrians called this new
instrument a Pandura, which
described its shape. The Arabs
called it Dambura, the Latins
Mandora, the Italians, Mandola.
The smaller version of the
traditional mandola was called
mandolina by the Italians.
The Mandolin Comes To North
America
The mandolin entered the
mainstream of popular American
culture during the first epoch of
substantial immigration from
eastern and southern Europe, a
period of prosperity and vulgarity,
when things exotic and foreign
dominated popular taste.
It was in vogue in the 1850s, when
it shared the parlor with zithers,
mandolas, ukuleles, and other
novelties designed to amuse the
increasingly leisured middle class.
A marked increase in Italian
immigration in the 1880s sparked
a fad for the bowl-backed
Neopolitan instrument that spread
across the land. The mandolin was
even among the first recorded
instruments on Edison cylinders.
In 1897, Montgomery Ward's
catalog marveled at the
'phenomenal growth in our
Mandolin trade'.
The Rage of the New Century
By the turn of the century,
mandolin ensembles were touring
the vaudeville circuit, and
mandolin orchestras were forming
in schools and colleges. In 1900, a
company called Lyon & Healy
boasted 'At any time you can find
in our factory upwards of 10,000
mandolins in various stages of
construction'. From the Sears and
Montgomery Ward catalogs,
mandolins proliferated across the
South. Attempting to beat the
competition, the Gibson company
sent field reps across America to
encourage sales of mandolins, and
to establish mandolin orchestras.
From the turn of the century
through the 1940s, a handful of
American virtuoso mandolinists,
mostly immigrants such as
Bernardo Dapace, Samuel Siegal,
Dave Apollon, and Giduanni
Giouale, performed, recorded,
composed, and arranged for the
mandolin. These artists appeared
in concert halls, and vaudeville
settings, performing ethnic,
popular, and classical music.
By this time banjo, mandolin, and
guitar clubs had become the rage
among middle-class youth on
college campuses and in towns
and cities throughout the South,
and a variety of playing styles--
some of them borrowed from
guitar techniques-- were made
widely available in instruction
books and on the recordings of
such popular urban musicians as
Fred Van Eps and Vess Ossman.
The Evolution Of The Modern
Flat-Back Mandolin
Orville H. Gibson was born in New
York in 1856, and moved to
Kalamazoo, Michigan as a young
man. He began designing and
building instruments in the 1880s.
In 1898, he was granted a patent
for a new design in arch-top
instruments. His early instruments
were highly experimental and
ornate. In 1902, a group of
businessmen bought his patent,
and formed the Gibson Mandolin-
Guitar Co., where Orville remained
as a consultant, but not a partner,
until 1915.
The 1905 Gibson A-4 was a
revolutionary instrument in its
time, breaking radically away from
the traditional bowl-back
instruments brought to America
by Italian immigrants
(disparagingly referred to as
'taterbugs'). Instead of having a
flat or bent top and a bowlback,
Orville's new design was based on
principles of violin construction,
using a carved top and back.
Though this design was subtly
modified over the years, it clearly
set the standard for what was to
become the preferred style of
mandolin used in American folk
and popular music.
Orville Gibson was apparently
obsessed with ornamentation,
particularly the scroll. He also
emphasized the importance of
machines in precision
manufacture. His personal
hallmark, included as an inlay on
many of his early instruments,
was an occult star-and-crescent.
The 1910 Gibson F-4 with its
lavishly detailed flower pot
headstock inlay featured a new
scroll 3-point design. In general,
this mandolin represented a huge
step forward in the development
of the modern mandolin look, one
that has carried over to the
present time. The new mandolin
had a full resonant, well-balanced
tone with great carrying power.
In 1922, Gibson, under the
influence of their new acoustic
engineer Lloyd Allayre Loar,
refurbished their entire line of
mandolins. The new versions had
a number of distinguishing
features including an adjustable
truss-rod in the neck, adjustable
two-piece ebony bridge, and a
new tapering peghead contour
called the 'snake-head'. Perhaps
Loar's finest achievement, at least
for devotees of bluegrass music,
was his F-5, one of his new Master
Model style-5 series. There were
approximately 170 F-5s signed and
dated by Lloyd Loar himself. These
mandolins are in great demand,
and today are often sold at
astonishingly high prices.
The mandolin can be described as
a small, short-necked lute with
eight strings. A lute is a
chordophone, an instrument
which makes sound by the
vibration of strings. As a
descendent of the lute, the
mandolin reaches back to some of
the earliest musical instruments.
Deep in the grottos of France are
beautiful cave paintings made
between 15,000 BC and 8500 BC.
These paintings include one of a
man with what appears to be a
simple one-stringed instrument
that is being played with a bow.
This musical bow represents the
first stringed instruments man
invented. They were played by
plucking the string with the
fingers, and later by tapping the
string with a stick. An increase in
volume was first gained by holding
the bow in the mouth. Later,
gourds were attached to the bow
to act as resonators.
Lute-like chordophones appear as
early as 2000 BC in Mesopotamia.
These early instruments were
fretless. Changes in pitch were
made by pressing the strings
down onto the neck of the
instrument. The strings were
sometimes plucked by using hard
objects or plectrums rather than
the fingers as the plectrums or
picks produced a louder, sharper,
sound than the fingers.
By the Seventh Century AD a folk
lute called the oud was in use. The
oud remains in use today, virtually
unchanged, in the music of the
Near East, particularly in Armenia
and Egypt. 'Oud' is the Arabic
name for wood, and the oud is a
wooden lute. The oud found its
way into Spain during the Moorish
conquest of Spain (711- 1492), to
Venice through coastal trade, and
to Europe through returning
Crusaders (around 1099).
In a gallery in Washington, a
painting by Agnelo Gaddi (1369-
1396) depicts an angel playing a
miniature lute called the mandora.
The miniature lute was probably
contrived to fill out the scale of
16th century lute ensembles. The
Assyrians called this new
instrument a Pandura, which
described its shape. The Arabs
called it Dambura, the Latins
Mandora, the Italians, Mandola.
The smaller version of the
traditional mandola was called
mandolina by the Italians.
The Mandolin Comes To North
America
The mandolin entered the
mainstream of popular American
culture during the first epoch of
substantial immigration from
eastern and southern Europe, a
period of prosperity and vulgarity,
when things exotic and foreign
dominated popular taste.
It was in vogue in the 1850s, when
it shared the parlor with zithers,
mandolas, ukuleles, and other
novelties designed to amuse the
increasingly leisured middle class.
A marked increase in Italian
immigration in the 1880s sparked
a fad for the bowl-backed
Neopolitan instrument that spread
across the land. The mandolin was
even among the first recorded
instruments on Edison cylinders.
In 1897, Montgomery Ward's
catalog marveled at the
'phenomenal growth in our
Mandolin trade'.
The Rage of the New Century
By the turn of the century,
mandolin ensembles were touring
the vaudeville circuit, and
mandolin orchestras were forming
in schools and colleges. In 1900, a
company called Lyon & Healy
boasted 'At any time you can find
in our factory upwards of 10,000
mandolins in various stages of
construction'. From the Sears and
Montgomery Ward catalogs,
mandolins proliferated across the
South. Attempting to beat the
competition, the Gibson company
sent field reps across America to
encourage sales of mandolins, and
to establish mandolin orchestras.
From the turn of the century
through the 1940s, a handful of
American virtuoso mandolinists,
mostly immigrants such as
Bernardo Dapace, Samuel Siegal,
Dave Apollon, and Giduanni
Giouale, performed, recorded,
composed, and arranged for the
mandolin. These artists appeared
in concert halls, and vaudeville
settings, performing ethnic,
popular, and classical music.
By this time banjo, mandolin, and
guitar clubs had become the rage
among middle-class youth on
college campuses and in towns
and cities throughout the South,
and a variety of playing styles--
some of them borrowed from
guitar techniques-- were made
widely available in instruction
books and on the recordings of
such popular urban musicians as
Fred Van Eps and Vess Ossman.
The Evolution Of The Modern
Flat-Back Mandolin
Orville H. Gibson was born in New
York in 1856, and moved to
Kalamazoo, Michigan as a young
man. He began designing and
building instruments in the 1880s.
In 1898, he was granted a patent
for a new design in arch-top
instruments. His early instruments
were highly experimental and
ornate. In 1902, a group of
businessmen bought his patent,
and formed the Gibson Mandolin-
Guitar Co., where Orville remained
as a consultant, but not a partner,
until 1915.
The 1905 Gibson A-4 was a
revolutionary instrument in its
time, breaking radically away from
the traditional bowl-back
instruments brought to America
by Italian immigrants
(disparagingly referred to as
'taterbugs'). Instead of having a
flat or bent top and a bowlback,
Orville's new design was based on
principles of violin construction,
using a carved top and back.
Though this design was subtly
modified over the years, it clearly
set the standard for what was to
become the preferred style of
mandolin used in American folk
and popular music.
Orville Gibson was apparently
obsessed with ornamentation,
particularly the scroll. He also
emphasized the importance of
machines in precision
manufacture. His personal
hallmark, included as an inlay on
many of his early instruments,
was an occult star-and-crescent.
The 1910 Gibson F-4 with its
lavishly detailed flower pot
headstock inlay featured a new
scroll 3-point design. In general,
this mandolin represented a huge
step forward in the development
of the modern mandolin look, one
that has carried over to the
present time. The new mandolin
had a full resonant, well-balanced
tone with great carrying power.
In 1922, Gibson, under the
influence of their new acoustic
engineer Lloyd Allayre Loar,
refurbished their entire line of
mandolins. The new versions had
a number of distinguishing
features including an adjustable
truss-rod in the neck, adjustable
two-piece ebony bridge, and a
new tapering peghead contour
called the 'snake-head'. Perhaps
Loar's finest achievement, at least
for devotees of bluegrass music,
was his F-5, one of his new Master
Model style-5 series. There were
approximately 170 F-5s signed and
dated by Lloyd Loar himself. These
mandolins are in great demand,
and today are often sold at
astonishingly high prices.
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