Whats the story on such a large Mandolin

What would be the best application for this instrument.

I tried mandolin but couldnt get the fingers working on such a small neck.
have been listening to Nickel Creek I believe is the name of band and now I crave for the texture that a good player can put into grooves of songs.

There is, as with violin, a whole family of mando instruments: mandolin, mandola, mando cello, mando bass

I've been fervently hoping Bill doesn't go into mandocellos or mandolas.

tom, fear not. unless it makes $$$ sense bill won't "tool up" for these. i think Larry Smart has only made a handful of mandolas and when he had to do a presentation on "his family of instruments" he had to borrow a mandocello that he had made several years prior- not sure he's made more than a few of these.

not a lot of volume money in mandolin family instruments.

Where would that sit in an ensemble, dont really see them much.

As I recall Mike Marshall has recorded with one recently. Look for his duet recodings with Chris Thile. Think of it as a low pitched 12 string guitar. I'm not a big fan of them but they can sound impressive in the right hands. I have an octave mandolin tuned a 5th above a mandocello { EADG - from high to low }. Much more versatile if you ask me.

Thanks

mandocello would take the part of the cello.......just above the bass line.

The British luthier David Oddy makes a lovely Mando-Cello,his instruments have a very rich tone & are easy for guitarists to adapt to.I've had one for about 18 months & the sound becomes very addictive.Generally mine stays in GDAD tuning but there are some other low tunings which sound fantastic.
The Devon duo,Show of Hands, use them a lot, you can catch some of their live music over on YouTube.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Marc Jones,