Lute Mandola

[Toad_T]

Ok so I've just ordered my first custom-buildt instrument!

A lute-mandola (a type of mandola developed in Sweden by Ale Möller and the instrument builders Ådin & Ekvall)

I talked to Ådin yesterday, and even though I haven't decided on the details yet (did I say details? More like...will I have one in CGDAE or CGDAEH...pretty big detail!) it will be in my hands in six months! It will feature minimum five point capos (an excellent new swedish invention!), but I'm thinking of having extra point capos so that I can play with hardanger fiddles who are commonly tune in H (or B as you would say...), and it will have three extra frets for quarter tones.

Anyway...It will look something like this:



Confused? Well if you're interested I'll tell yo more about it...but for now I'll keep my mouth shut in case you're not interested at all

[Ward Elliott]

Toad T,
# #I'd like to hear more about it! The one in the photo looks like it might be made by S.Sobell, is that right? Tell me more about the capos and did you say "quarter tone frets"? Any link you could give us to hear someone play this thing? Looks very cool! Congratulations on your order!

[Mandobar]

ward, that is not a sobell. he's actually stopped building mandolin family instruments for a while........shame, he makes a wicked zouk!

[Jacob]

The builders are #Ådin & Ekvall in Sweden.
They have developed the pin point capo which utilizes a removable set screw that attaches to a bushing inlaid in the fingerboard.
This mandola shows the quarter tone frets for Nordic music.
Nordic fiddlers commonly use quarter tones.
There are some instrument sound samples on this page. #Click on "ladda".

[Toad_T]

Jacob: are you in Sweden? Do you have one?
Also, they have developed a new mandolin "låtmandolin" but I'm pretty sure they translate it "lute-mandolin".
Do you have "låtmandola"? I think I've only ever seen Ådin&Ekvalls "låtmandolas", but never one of söderströms, which is another builder. Do you know them? Are they good?

I am lucky enough to live only 8 swedish miles from Grebbestad, where the builders are located...so it only takes around an hour in car. I was considering getting a swedish bouzouki for a while, but settled for one of these...

You can also hear and see this instrument being played on TvFolk click on sweden, then look for the artists "frifot" and look at "förgäves/polska".
It's Ale Möller playing the instrument, the same guy as in the picture.

The point capos are very useful since nordic music is very much based on drones, so you can kind of strum the strings with the pin-point capos while you play something else at the other strings. So if the tune is in A, you can have the capos at for instance A and E at the G and D strings. Of course, you can also just play chords. But this is good for open chords which sounds much nicer with nordic music.