Ovation mandocello

[Greg Stec]

The ad sez it's one of the old US-made ones.
FYI only. Usual caveats.

https://fresno.craigslist.org/msg/4627525677.html

[mrmando]

The Ovation mandocello was never manufactured outside the U.S.

[Ted Eschliman]

Not an unreasonable price. Not a steal, either. Sometimes I wish I still had my Ovation, but the technique is so different than mandolin or mandola, and I didn't want to invest the time developing it.

[clobflute]

Not an unreasonable price. Not a steal, either. Sometimes I wish I still had my Ovation, but the technique is so different than mandolin or mandola, and I didn't want to invest the time developing it.

:eek:

Maybe I'm just the kind of guy who finds it easy to fall in love with anything of the aesthetic order that sounds as glorious as a mandocello's earthy resonance. I've only been playing mandolin for a year (on and off) and moved up to a mandocello at the start of the summer holiday. I couldn't find an Ovation mandocello this side of the Atlantic and opted for a Hathway mandocello which is extremely well built (same make as the Jethro Tull guys' bouzouki - and sad to hear their bassist died this weekend too).

I think I've worked out how to play the first 20 seconds of Bach's cello prelude on it now. Mostly the finger strength to hold down those 4 steel tensile rope strings is the challenge to finger dexterity. I know a lot of people don't like taking up a new instrument when they're just trying to get to grips with a smaller one, but being deprived in the city, living on traffic noise, sirens, high pitched screaming voices of babies and others, it's really comforting and reassuring having the deep echoing boom of the mandocello being played.

Any well made mandocello is an amazing way to open up one's sonic experience!