#mandolino

I call this picture "Mandolino Italia." It features a very happy Italian mandolin player surrounded by joyful Italians drinking wine and eating pasta, capturing the essence of Italian culture and music. #mandolino #happy #italian #mandolin #musician #party #pasta #food #culture #international #italy #music

come fare mandolini del ponte di Ferrara / how to make mandolins from the Ferrara bridge

Benedetta Satta Sassari. È un esempio di vitalità e spirito di giovialità la simpatica nonnina di 86 anni Benedetta Satta che tutti i sabati insieme al coro parrocchiale di San Vincenzo anima la santa messa delle 18 con il suo mandolino. «Sono originaria di Aglientu – dice simpaticamente Benedetta – ma manco da oltre 63 anni. Ho sempre avuto la passione per gli strumenti musicali, nel mio paese…

Fourths tuning was the older mandola/mandolin standard. This is generally true of plucked instruments along the Silk Road. Trebles change the least, and basses vary greatly in number and tuning.

If you can play two strings a fourth apart, you can pick up most any plucked string instrument from China to Italy.

All these instruments with flat finials instead of violin style scrolls (see those in the top right of the chart) can be traced back to the Central Asian/Greater Iranian barbat. I can hypothesize this because that same decorative pattern is found on lutes that have traveled outward from there: the Chinese pipa and Japanese biwa, the Yemeni qanbus, the East African gabbus/gabusi, the older styles of Italian mandolin, mandola, and colascione, and several varieties of cittern including the guitara portuguesa and the 18th century English guittar [sic].

Here is a baroque mandolino (Anglophone historical performance specialists have taken to appending the italian -o to the baroque mandolin to distinguish it from modern ones. This is stupid). It is in fourths tuning, though I believe the lowest sounding two courses are a major third apart (which aligns the outer courses at two octaves).

Gut strings on gut frets. Less clangy than post-industrial revolution steel wire.

Italiani pensando al mandolino: