Pet peeve: "Mandolin" used generically (Oxford Music Online?)

[mrmando]

Does anyone have a subscription to Oxford Music Online?

Here is why I'm asking: I was perusing this Wikipedia entry for a South American instrument called a bandolin:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandolin

Said entry contains the following claim:

It may be described as a flat-backed mandolin, which is a general term for various instruments similar to the mandolin...

It attributes the permission for generic use of "mandolin" to an article by Paul Sparks in Oxford Music Online.

Did Paul Sparks really say it was OK to use "mandolin" to refer to any small chordophone?

Anyone who browses eBay regularly has seen the term "mandolin" applied to lyras, gusles, morin khuurs, pipas, prims, bracs, domras, bandurrias, charangos, and even koras. I'd like to think that people who use the term that way are simply ignorant fools. Is Paul Sparks saying such descriptions are legitimate? Gee, I hope not.

So before I get a trial subscription to Oxford Music Online just to check this out, has anyone read the article in question?

[Tim2723]

I don't know if it's truly correct usage, but the 'mandolin family' is so large that I wouldn't be surprised about it, nor would I get upset about it. Besides, it's Wikipedia.

[mrmando]

Wikipedia is one thing.

Paul Sparks, however, is a recognized expert on the history of the mandolin, and Oxford Music Online encompasses the Grove Dictionary of Music, which is generally well thought of as a scholarly music reference. I do not give a hang what Wikipedia says, in a general sense, but I should like to know whether this Wikipedia author has correctly represented Paul Sparks and Oxford Music Online.

[delsbrother]

After this guy, all bets are off.

[mrmando]

I wonder what Paul Sparks would say about Srinivas. After all, he's a classical mandolin player too...

[August Watters]

Here's the introduction to the Paul Sparks article from Oxford:

Any of several types of small, pear-shaped, fretted string instruments plucked with a plectrum, quill or the fingers. They descended from the medieval Gittern and the Renaissance Mandore. Two types were predominant by the mid-18th century: the older mandolino or mandola (often called the Milanese mandolin from the mid-19th century onwards) and the newly-invented four-course Neapolitan mandolin (often simply called the mandolin).

Mandolins have a history stretching back over 400 years and, although they existed on the fringes of the art music world for much of that time, they remained consistently popular for informal music-making. In the classification of Hornbostel and Sachs, mandolins are chordophones.

This introduction is followed by a long, specific article. Looks to me as if the Wikipedia entry misrepresents what Paul Sparks said.

[John McCoy]

The citation to Oxford Music Online goes to this:
"Bandolim. Flat-backed variant of the Neapolitan mandolin, widely played in Brazil and Portugal."
Yeah, bandolim, not bandolin.

I edited the Wikipedia page. I started out just to correct the citation, but ended up doing a pretty substantial rewrite because the ... oh, never mind. Anyway, I think I corrected the most egregious errors. And I added a section at the end that I hope will weed out references to banjolins.

If you care to check the page now and let me know of any other suggested changes, I'd 'ppreciate it koze sometimes even if my fax are correct eye get in a hurrie and dont expresso myself vary well.

[mrmando]

Thanks, gentlemen.

This all came up because of an ad in the Classifieds ... someone is looking for a bandolin player for a film project in Southern California. I exchanged a couple of emails with the dude and that's really what he wants ... not a bandolim. L.A., as I recall, has its share of Andean folk bands (one, it seems, for every farmer's market). Assuming that the members of such bands know each other and have some networking in place, I'd think if you could talk to someone from such a band, you could eventually find a bandolin player.

[Paul Hostetter]

When the Wikipedia page first went up, it was written by a Srinivas fan who made it seem as though the mandolin was an Indian invention, that was coincidentally found in a few other unspecified places on earth. It was a horrible page, and floundered through various rewrites by myself and few others who had some actual knowledge of mandolin history. I haven't checked it in a long time, but am happy to see it has come a long way since then. But it still has a ways to go.

For example, in the current part on Brazil, the word bandolim isn't even mentioned, though choro is referred to twice.

Brazil

The mandolin has a long and rich tradition in Brazilian folk music, especially in the style called choro. The composer and mandolin virtuoso Jacob do Bandolim did much to popularize the instrument through many recordings, and his influence continues to the present day. Some contemporary mandolin players in Brazil include Jacob's disciple Deo Rian, and Hamilton de Holanda (the former, a traditional choro-style player, the latter an eclectic innovator).

The mandolin came into Brazil by way of Portugal. Portuguese music has a long tradition of mandolins and mandolin-like instruments (see, for example, the Portuguese guitar).

The mandolin is used almost exclusively as a melody instrument in Brazilian folk music - the role of chordal accompaniment being taken over by the cavaco and nylon-strung guitar. Its popularity, therefore, has risen and fallen with instrumental folk music styles, especially choro. The later part of the 20th century saw a renaissance of choro in Brazil, and with it, a revival of the country's mandolinistic tradition.

This part also collides with the part farther down the page about Portugal, where it seems the bandolim (or whatever) didn't start going anywhere until the mid-19th C. That's when choro blossomed, but choro was not about mandolins back then.

Brazil was part of Portugal starting in April of 1500. It has always spoken Portuguese. Mandolin has " a long and rich tradition" in Brazilian music, some of which might be regarded as folk music.

Cavaco is a nickname for cavaquinho, which is played with high degree of refinement, not just "folk music." Whoever put that in should have used the right name. And I wish they knew about Henrique Cazes, who is the preeminent scholar and performer of choro, bandolim and cavaquinho.

Then there's this sad entry:

Continental Europe
See also: Czech bluegrass [Whaaat??]
An increased interest in bluegrass music, especially in Central European countries such as the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic, has inspired many new mandolin players and builders. These players often mix traditional folk elements with bluegrass. Classically, Beethoven composed mandolin music[8] and enjoyed playing the mandolin.[9] The opera Don Giovanni by Mozart includes some mandolin parts. Also very well known are the mandolin concerti by Vivaldi. Gustav Mahler used the mandolin in his Symphony no. 7 and Das Lied von der Erde. Some 20th-century classical composers also used the mandolin as their instrument of choice (amongst these are: Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky, Zappa[disambiguation needed]).

This is a bizarre take on the mandolin in Western Europe. Bluegrass? How about Germany, which has the most number of mandolin orchestras in Europe? France, Italy? Does someone think it died out there? Or that only bluegrass bands are carrying on? The whole Wikipedia entry is now much too heavily tilted to an American perspective, leaving huge factual voids.

Vivaldi's "mandolin" concerti are essentially unplayable on the steel-strung Neapolitan mandolin; they were written for the mandora (soprano lute), which has imaginatively been recast as a mandolin, because of its size.

There is a Wiki page on the Bandolin, one of a number of New World mandolin cousin instruments of Spanish descent. Nothing about the bandolim though.

The mandolin has been used extensively in the traditional music of England and Scotland for generations, but the instrument has also found its way into British rock music.

Who the heck cares? First sentence—feh.

If you want to tighten up the term mandolin, start by subtracting the word from anything Srinivas does. He plays a toy electric guitar tuned to an open tuning. (He's in his 40's and not a boy prodigy, not a classical musician, etc.) Zero mandolin content there. Pet peeves abound.

But I'd never try to take on Sparks. I'd worry if someone misrepresented him, which might be the case, but OUP is his publisher, so you'd think he'd know what was being said on his behalf.

[mrmando]

Hm. Well, my question didn't concern the main W'pedia mandolin entry, but what the heck. I don't think the Wikipedia cabal of editors includes anyone who's really knowledgeable about mandolins, and that page has always had a high stupidity quotient.

It's true enough that the Vivaldi concerti weren't written for the Neapolitan instrument, but a fair number of recordings ought to dispel the notion that they are "unplayable" on that instrument. As for Srinivas, call his instrument anything you like ... but when Sam Bush picks up his National mandolin, which has only four strings and is tuned to open D, does he stop being a mandolinist? True, Srinivas, who is my age, is no longer a child prodigy, but he certainly was considered one back at age 6, or 8, or 11, or however old he was when he gave his first major recital. It's my understanding that Carnatic music has the same kind of cultural status in South India that the music of Mozart et al. has in the West, so if I call Srinivas a classical musician, that is what I mean. Indian cultural organizations in the U.S. are constantly referring to Carnatic music and musicians as "classical"; so if you have a beef, it's with them, not with me.

[delsbrother]

Paul has never had much love for the U man. Oh well.

[mrmando]

Is it OK to call him a mandolin player now?

[mrmando]

How about now?

Having once seen a photo like this but not being able to find it again, I've nonetheless maintained for years that U-man's first solidbody electric did indeed have eight tuners and was thus properly called a mandolin. And here at last is proof.

(Hm ... even in 1987 that photo was about ten years out of date.)

[Paul Hostetter]

Is it OK to call him a mandolin player now?

It would have been back then.

[delsbrother]

That second picture is pretty interesting, Martin. The Sahmax-style mandolin I personally held (which didn't exactly look like Srinivas') was never set up as a child's six string guitar, even though it had a six string pickup. It was always intended to be played as five-strings. Of course it wasn't the greatest quality instrument, either, so it may have just been something cobbled together to satisfy Srinivas-fan demand.

But it's fascinating to know that at least in one instance, there was a 4 course "rhino-horn-shaped" mandolin in Srinivas' hands. It's kind of maddening to know that you've actually talked to him and not gotten any definitive answers as to his gear.

[mrmando]

Srinivas' brother Rajesh is the more down-to-earth (from a Western perspective) of the two and would be more likely to want to talk about gear and such. Srinivas himself is a sweet, friendly guy, but exhibits the sort of other-worldly detachment you'd expect from a real live guru. But anyway, the pictures tell the story: Srinivas started with an 8-stringer, replaced the nut & bridge and cut down the headstock, and all the similar instruments you've seen have been copies of that one. There's a YouTube video of Srinivas at 11 or so with the "Sahmax" clearly visible on his headstock, so he must have already worn out the original instrument and moved on to a copy by then.