Civil War Era mandolins.

[mandotopia]

Living near the Antietam Battlefield allows for many opportunities for reenacting. I was wondering, what were the predominant mandolin styles during the civil war. Certianly there must have been bowl backs but were there flat backs during that era? I would like to find an historically accurate civil war era mando.

[JeffD]

duplicate

[JeffD]

I have enquired into this a bit, as I play a lot of Civil War gigs, especially the last few years, with it being the 150th anniversary of every dropped glove and buried sword.

From what I understand there would be very very few mandolins in the country at the time. If any at all, they are likely to be a few stray bowlbacks brought over by immigrants from Europe. Guitars, yea, banjos maybe, lots and lots of brass of course, but mandolins, probably not at all or very very rare.

[allenhopkins]

This is a question of some interest to me, since I regularly do Civil War Songs programs, with gut-strung banjo, mid-19th-century guitar, and English-system concertina. I love to play mandolin, but want to keep my programs as authentic as possible.

A few years ago, I did a half-day's worth of Google research on "mandolins in the Civil War." What I found, I reported in this thread. (http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?29329-Civil-war-era-tunes/page2&highlight=civil) A few references to mandolin playing, but no evidence that the instrument was widespread or popular.

There have been occasional mentions of mandolins in American publications since colonial times. Most of these have been associated with immigrant musicians and music teachers, from Mediterranean countries. Clearly, there were a few musicians playing the instrument in the US in the mid-19th century, but the big "mandolin craze" didn't hit the US until around 1880.

[multidon]

If you do a Google search for mandolin history you should be able to find a very interesting PDF by Graham MacDonald who has written an exhaustively researched history of mandolin family development. Perhaps someone else could post the link. I don't know how to do that from my tablet.

In short mandolins in the 1860's in the USA and CSA would have been rare because they would have been expensive. Most would have been Italian bowl backs as noted above. Hard to imagine a soldier taking an expensive thing like that into the field but it is possible. As Graham notes in his article there were German French Spanish and Portugese flat backed instruments similar to mandolins being produced then. There was a great lack of standardization as to what constituted a "mandolin" then. So it is not impossible that an immigrant or traveller might have brought over a flat backed instrument much like a mandolin during this period.

[Ron Cox]

I was (wrongly) recommended a pancake style Army/Navy style that I marched with for 5 years. Only one person mentioned anything about it. The tourists don't care otherwise.

The one "Professional" Civil War Mandolin Player/Re-enactor that I know plays a bowl back only (when he isn't playing fiddle). Most hard core Re-enactors research their characters quite a bit and struggle to be as accurate as possible. Unfortunately, my forte was the clothing of the period. I do have a huge collection of sheet music of songs popular in the time period though.

Ashokan Farewell, as pretty as it is, was not a CW tune. I was asked to play it so many times by tourists thanks to Ken Burns. Translates to Mandolin well though.

[multidon]

Here is the link I referred to earlier:

http://www.mcdonaldstrings.com/mandobook/History.pdf

[Caleb]

In the novel Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, toward the end one of the main characters shows an interest in learning the mandolin (but never lives to do it). Lots of fiddle and banjo in that story but no mandolin players. I've read several Louis L'Amour novels and remember a mandolin mentioned in one of them, though I can't remember which. These writers are pretty solid on historical facts, so that tells me there were some mandolins around but probably not many. Tons of fiddles and banjos.

[Dobe]

Played a re-enactors ball a few months back. Caller/Contra dance thing. Best gig I'd had in a long time. Didn't have to be period correct in everything we played; more interested in the right tempo. I was playing a pretty darn modern looking mando but it didn't seem to matter. It was great playing to such an appreciative audience, all dancing in period garb. Wonderful folks ! Great time !!!

[Petrus]

Found this thread on another forum, "A Website for the Authentic Civil War Living Historian" (!) --

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?4844-Civil-War-Mandolin

And here, a peculiarly un-civil thread about Civil War mandolins:

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?91883-Question-about-mid-1800-s-mandolins

[Petrus]

Of course, as my avatar indicates, no less a builder than Stradavari (an Italian, and fairly well regarded for his fiddles, iirc) was making mandolins in the 1680s. (Though this one's called a mandolino and has ten strings, making it more of a cittern I guess ...)

119590

I think you have to decide what the rules are for the particular reenactment you are participating in. Is it strict about only using items that actually were in use at those places and times, or can you use something that might possibly have been used, if someone at the time had happened to bring one along? IOW, a mandolin could arguably have found its way there and would be permitted, while a double-neck keytar would not have. :cool:

[allenhopkins]

I've played a bunch of re-enactors' dances with an aluminum bass fiddle, which I guess is about as anachronistic as one could get unless one brought a Fender Precision Bass. Mine's painted to simulate wood, so it doesn't make the stricter re-enactors throw up or get hostile, but still… Jim Kimball, the dance caller, does insist I play with a bow, since that would have been the most common way a mid-19th-century bassist would have played.

Which leads to the generalization, that the thing with re-enactment music is to get the "sound" and the "look" correct. If you don't have a restored period instrument, get a modern one that looks as close to "authentic" as you can get. And if a mandolin would have been a rarity in Civil War-era string band music, factor that into your choice for instrumentation.

Usually, I don't bring a mandolin to "Civil War" gigs; if I do, it's a bowl-back. I also have a bowl-back Washburn mandola, which I bring sometimes. Remember, one of the purposes of these events, is to re-create as closely as possible what occurred 150 years ago. Don't play your banjo Scruggs-style, don't "chop" off-beat mandolin chords, try to avoid Ashokan Farewell, yada yada.

Played a "Ren Faire" in AZ years ago, saw a lady in very authentic costume walking around with a Yamaha 12-string guitar. A lot of these decisions are just common sense, IMHO.