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Thread: In Praise of the F5

  1. #1

    Default In Praise of the F5

    Rococo Yankee-doodle-dandy - preposterously shaped and spikey. Silt smooth mumuring, tingling flurries and thundering barks. A soulful silly goose, cocksure and quaint. Florentine in name and uniquely "us." Click image for larger version. 

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  3. #2

    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Scroll shaped fingers nipping up and down the neck ...
    Last edited by billkilpatrick; Mar-22-2017 at 7:41am. Reason: edit ...

  4. #3

    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    It really is a triumph of aesthetic design that remains intensely practical as well as visually worth replicating. Even present-day master designers who go out on a bit of a limb - such as Sorensen and Giacomel - still pay tribute with their own wonderful interpretations of the original F5.

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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Looks and sounds penetrating the mind and heart.

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  8. #5

    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Was asked to play mandolin in a local production a while back and when I showed the director the F5, he looked at it as if it came from mars. Perfectly familiar to me (folky, mis-spent youth) but if you'd never seen one - especially in Italy, where "mandolin" means "Naples" - it could be a wtf moment.

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    Registered User Drew Streip's Avatar
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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Nice!

    (Side topic: What strings are those?)

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    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Quote Originally Posted by billkilpatrick View Post
    Was asked to play mandolin in a local production a while back and when I showed the director the F5, he looked at it as if it came from mars. Perfectly familiar to me (folky, mis-spent youth) but if you'd never seen one - especially in Italy, where "mandolin" means "Naples" - it could be a wtf moment.
    I can relate completely as one of the few Americans that grew up playing Italian/European music and bowlback mandolins, NOT BG or folk or Irish. I played jazz on it too, since I was from New Orleans, but didn't get into any BG/folk till later - on Dobro, not mandolin. And even then I prefered lap steel , Hawaiian music and Western swing to most BG.

    Of course I got used to seeing and hearing the F mandolins....but in my heart, when I look at that Loar, I see something new, tuned like a traditional Italian mandolin, but different.

    More like my archtop f hole jazz guitars.

    And of course, there are those missing upper frets.

    Actually I've played quite a few F's, and they are great instruments. They make other guys do wonderful things .

    I just never have been interested in owning one.

    A comment from the other side of the wtf moment.

  12. #8
    mandolin slinger Steve Ostrander's Avatar
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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    especially in Italy, where "mandolin" means "Naples"
    I thought "mandolin" meant "out of tune".....
    Living’ in the Mitten

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    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Ostrander View Post
    I thought "mandolin" meant "out of tune".....
    Indeed, mandolin is the Italian word for "out of tune".
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
    --M. Stillion

    "Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
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  16. #10

    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Streip View Post
    Nice! (Side topic: What strings are those?)
    Thanks. "Calace," RW92 - Medium mandolin strings by Dogal - Carbon steel, Round wound, Hand made. Don't know if they're available in the US but they're the absolute best - long lasting, subtle and punchy at the same time.

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    Lurkist dhergert's Avatar
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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Definition of mandolin

    1: a musical instrument of the lute family that has a usually pear-shaped body and fretted neck and four to six pairs of strings

    2: usually mandoline [French, from Italian mandolino mandolin] : a kitchen utensil with a blade for slicing and shredding

    -- Don

    "Music: A minor auditory irritation occasionally characterized as pleasant."
    "It is a lot more fun to make music than it is to argue about it."


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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Quote Originally Posted by billkilpatrick View Post
    "A soulful silly goose, cocksure and quaint"
    um... I'll stick with the A5

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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Quote Originally Posted by dhergert View Post
    Definition of mandolin

    1: a musical instrument of the lute family that has a usually pear-shaped body and fretted neck and four to six pairs of strings

    2: usually mandoline [French, from Italian mandolino mandolin] : a kitchen utensil with a blade for slicing and shredding

    I'd say that Jesse Brock is capable of shredding a mandolin (or a mandoline, for that matter.)

  20. #14
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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    A lot of people that don`t know any better all think that a mandolin has to be a bowl back, I have played many gigs and have been asked "What is that you are playing", when I say it is a mandolin they still look to see if it has a bowl back...I owned a few A models before ever owning an F model and I was attracted to the F and just drooled at the thought of ever owning one but after years of playing an F model I would just as soon play a good A model, mainly because of the difference in pricing between the two......

    Willie

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  22. #15

    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    ... Scroll's the thing - mucho mystique.

  23. #16
    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Quote Originally Posted by billkilpatrick View Post
    ... Florentine in name and uniquely "us."
    Ain't not neither. "F" ≠ "Florentine." Any more than "A = "Artist," or "H" = "Humongous big mandolin, better known as mandola," or "J" = "Jigantic big mandolin, better known as mando-bass." (Gibson never could spell.)

    Those letter designations were Gibson's arbitrary assignment for production and marketing purposes, and, as far as we know, never stood for anything. "Florentine" was used by Gibson for some ornate banjos in the 1920's, and I believe at least one guitar; they had white celluloid fingerboards decorated with scenes of Venice. (Note for long-deceased Gibson production workers: Florence and Venice are different cities, though both in Italy.)

    Gibson did make a mandolin labeled "Florentine" in the 1950-60's; it was a solid-body electric, and looked nothing like an F-5. They've also made some "Florentine" Les Paul guitars; here's one. The sharp-pointed cutaway in a guitar's body has picked up the sobriquet "Florentine," and the more squared-off version "Venetian," for no apparent reason I can figure.

    Usage has established that F-style mandolins are "Florentine," but I put that down to the human predilection for attaching significance to things and disliking arbitrariness. I, on the other hand, relish arbitrariness, and sometimes wish that Gibson had labeled that first scrolled mandolin the "Q-1" instead. Maybe we'd call those mandolins "Quebecois" rather than "Florentine..."
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    Registered User DavidKOS's Avatar
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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Quote Originally Posted by Willie Poole View Post
    A lot of people that don`t know any better all think that a mandolin has to be a bowl back, I have played many gigs and have been asked "What is that you are playing", when I say it is a mandolin they still look to see if it has a bowl back.
    I've had the same question on gigs with my bowl back mandolins.

    People can't tell what a lot of instruments are.

    Quote Originally Posted by allenhopkins View Post
    "Florentine" was used by Gibson for some ornate banjos in the 1920's, and I believe at least one guitar; they had white celluloid fingerboards decorated with scenes of Venice. (Note for long-deceased Gibson production workers: Florence and Venice are different cities, though both in Italy.)
    ....... The sharp-pointed cutaway in a guitar's body has picked up the sobriquet "Florentine," and the more squared-off version "Venetian," for no apparent reason I can figure.
    .
    I never understood why one shape guitar cutaway was named for Florence and the other for Venice. Neither place had anything to do with Gibson.

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Quote Originally Posted by billkilpatrick View Post
    Was asked to play mandolin in a local production a while back and when I showed the director the F5, he looked at it as if it came from mars. Perfectly familiar to me (folky, mis-spent youth) but if you'd never seen one - especially in Italy, where "mandolin" means "Naples" - it could be a wtf moment.
    When I was first becoming familiar with the range of mandolin shapes, seeing an F style for the first time in the pages of Mandolin World News, I was kind of disgusted. Pointless curly Dr. Seuss like extrusions and a peg head shaped like a cartoon of a big nosed guy with a cowlick.

    It is an acquired taste.

    Ahhhh. But once acquired...
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
    funny....

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  29. #19

    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    The F's scroll design was cadged from the Florentine Fleur-de-lisse symbol. Officially, Gibson Inc. might not have acknowledged the connection ... but we're not in Kansas anymore - or Kalamazoo for that matter. Besides ... fingers which prance up and down the fingerboard and curl beneath the pick all comport themselves to a primal, sympathetic oneness with the mysterios and mystifying scroll ...

  30. #20
    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Quote Originally Posted by billkilpatrick View Post
    The F's scroll design was cadged from the Florentine Fleur-de-lisse symbol. Officially, Gibson Inc. might not have acknowledged the connection ... but we're not in Kansas anymore - or Kalamazoo for that matter. Besides ... fingers which prance up and down the fingerboard and curl beneath the pick all comport themselves to a primal, sympathetic oneness with the mysterios and mystifying scroll ...
    Perhaps; perhaps not (I mean about the fleur-de-lis origin of the scroll -- can't speak about the mysterioso part). The fleur-de-lis is more French than Italian, associated with the French royal family:

    While the fleur-de-lis has appeared on countless European coats of arms and flags over the centuries, it is particularly associated with the French monarchy in a historical context, and continues to appear in the arms of the King of Spain (from the French House of Bourbon dynasty) and the Grand Duke of Luxembourg and members of the House of Bourbon. (per Wikipedia article).

    It is true that the fleur-de-lis appears on the coat-of-arms of Florence, but it also shows up in Spain, Bosnia, and the Boy Scouts, and very much in France and French-derived heraldry and symbol (e.g.Quebec).

    As for Gibson "not acknowledging the connection," recent Gibson advertising copy has in fact used the term "Florentine" to refer to the F-style instrument (I know I've seen this, but can't find a ref right now). I think, however, that this is Gibson catching up with common usage, rather than continuing an original designation begun by Orville Gibson when he made the first F-model. You can't find the "F = Florentine" language in Gibson's early descriptions -- at least I can't.
    Allen Hopkins
    Gibsn: '54 F5 3pt F2 A-N Custm K1 m'cello
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  31. #21
    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    I think the scroll was lifted from a cinnamon bun and Allen, you forgot U for Harp guitar

    Allen, there were others that thought Gibson had used the Florentine thing in some catalogs but nobody has found it yet. I just don't buy it that Orville had that in mind. I think the missing letters were probably designs that didn't make the cut. What letter designation was the Lyre mandolin? If there was an A and an F what the heck was that one?
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
    --M. Stillion

    "Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
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  33. #22

    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    In Florence it's called the "Giglio" (gee-leeo) and as for it being Gibson's inspiration for the "F" design ... let's just call it ... post truth:

    http://www.intoflorence.com/history-giglio-florence/

  34. #23

    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    I prefer to call them Squirrelly-Qs.
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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Quite a few years ago the my bluegrass band played a pops concert with a symphony orchestra and a theater group. When the show was reviewed in the newspaper, the '27 F-5 fern played by our mandolin player was described as a "ukulele." I suspect the music reviewer was not a country music fan.

  36. #25
    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: In Praise of the F5

    Well, at least they didn't call it a little guitar.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
    --M. Stillion

    "Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
    --J. Garber

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