i'm new to the mandolin world.my wife bought a fender52e for xmas last year.now i.m hooked.i recently found a 12 sting "cremona"mandolin at a garage sale.can anybody tell me how this is played.should string it as an 8 sting?it has not been played much and is solid and straight.
daryl woods
Triple courses aren't unheard of, but neither are mandolins made to be strung like guitars. Are there strings on it? If there aren't take a look at the slots in the nut. Are there four groups of three strings or six groups of two?
And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')
C.S. Lewis
I have a friend who has a "12 string mandolin", a purple electric danelectro styled instrument tuned like a guitar in double courses. Silly little mando wanna-be thing
Yes, that octave 12 string is a Vox Mando-Guitar. I believe that the Beatles actually used one on Rubber Soul. David Lindley also plays one of those.
As far as real 12 string (4 courses of three strings) mandolins, Oscar Schmidt made tons of them. Almost evry bowlback 12 string I have seen on eBay has been an OS. There is the telltale "OS" monogram on the pickguard.
Lyon & Healy made these also.
Years ago in a second hand music store in New York City, I saw a 12 string Gibson A model, prob one of a kind.
Jim
Jim
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The thing I have seen looks like a miniature Danelectro Longhorn bass, and it's actually made of masonite in the Dano style. It is of course mando scale but has the two extended horns on the top and bottom.
Buddy Miller too. And Glen Phillips used one on the Toad the Wet Sprocket reunion tour in 2003. The Vox ones are vintage and Vox no longer makes instruments, but my understanding is that the Vox instrument designs are now licensed to be built by Phantom:Originally Posted by (jgarber @ Dec. 14 2004, 10:58)
Phantom Guitars
My guess is a Spanish instrument...the banduria.
Its tuned like a twelve string guitar, I believe
only an octave higher
A very common instrument in spanish music.
Jeff
...and not surpisingly, very common in the Phillipines as well (but tuned in fourths a half-step higher than with Spanish tuning, I believe). A friend of mine complained that she had to take bandurria lessons as a child growing up in Manilla, which reminded me of my childhood complaints at having been forced to take piano lessons from Sister Theresa Rose (if only I stuck with it).
Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre?
Bandurrias have very short necks. They look like this.
Jim
Jim
My Stream on Soundcloud
19th Century Tunes
Playing lately:
1924 Gibson A4 - 2018 Campanella A-5 - 2007 Brentrup A4C - 1915 Frank Merwin Ashley violin - Huss & Dalton DS - 1923 Gibson A2 black snakehead - '83 Flatiron A5-2 - 1939 Gibson L-00 - 1936 Epiphone Deluxe - 1928 Gibson L-5 - ca. 1890s Fairbanks Senator Banjo - ca. 1923 Vega Style M tenor banjo - ca. 1920 Weymann Style 25 Mandolin-Banjo - National RM-1
This one is an Irish 12 string I picked up in Dublin about 12 years ago. I tune it same as a regular 8 string, it has silk & steel on it now but I am thinking about #a set of TI lights actually 2 sets unless I can find a store/site that sells TIs in singles, anyone know of where I can get single TIs?
Juststrings.com sells single TIs, but it would cost you a lot more than buying the extra set.
One of my babies... A VOX Mini XII...
I have a reissiue of the Vox Mini-12. It's supposed to be tuned in unisons, but I tune it like a regular 12 string, only the 1st 2 strings are tuned to C so I can get the octave on the 3rd course (Eb).
It's an interesting sounding axe. I'm still not sure what to do with it though.
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