Intro

  1. John Holder
    John Holder
    I'm happy to find an octave group. Hard to find anyone to discuss this wonderful instrument with. I've played the mandolin about 8 years. My wife and I moved from St. Louis to Knoxville about 3 years ago and unfortunately left our guitarist in St. Louis. About 8 months ago, I purchased a Trinity College octave to do a couple of songs that needed some guitar. I love the punchy - not another guitar - sound. I've replaced one of each of the GDA strings with an octave higher string to get a fuller, more exotic sound - resulting in a pretty cool sound. I'm currently rearranging my favorite mandolin songs into something I can play on the octave. I may never play the mandolin again.
  2. DummyMan
    DummyMan
    John,

    We're happy to have you in the group. Like you, I've found it hard to find anyone who has even heard of the OM, so to have you join the group, and live in my backyard, as it were, is a plus. I live in Sevierville.

    I am intrigued by your string arrangement. I had noticed that type of string set up on a 12 string guitar, but I never thought about it for OM. It makes sense. Many of my guitar friends have commented on how much the OM sounds like a 12SG anyway.

    Good to have you here.

    Dummyman
  3. John Holder
    John Holder
    I work at home so I'm usually around. We'll have to get together some time. My wife, Brenda, plays the bass and we sing together. I also play a little banjo and autoharp - we try to mix the sound up with different instruments. We're not great musicians or singers but I've been told we're pretty entertaining - no stage fright here. What's your routine? Maybe we can get together for lunch in Pigeon. Check us out at www.themholders.com.
  4. Amandalyn
    Amandalyn
    hello, I have an Old Wave Guitar shape Octave- easy to play and great tone! Glad to have the group here- looking for tabs/videos of OM.
    Best-
    Teri
  5. Susanne
    Susanne
    I love the sound of these instruments, and have played a little bouzouki. Now I'm planning to sell my bouzouki and buy a smaller instrument, an octave mandolin or such, to make it easier to play melody. There's no rush since I have a fresh scaphoid fracture and all stringed instruments will have to wait a few months. But if anyone is interested in a Joe Foley bouzouki, let me know... I can give more info on request, will probably put an ad on classifieds too...

    And if anyone has recommendations on OM's, I'm all ears. As small as possible but with that bouzouki-ish sound, easy to play, within Europe and less than 18000 SEK.
  6. Barbara Shultz
    Barbara Shultz
    I love the CBOM's! I've got a Petersen Level 4 Octave Mandolin, a Petersen Level 1 Cittern, a Petersen custom Mandola, and a Apollonio Bell Cittern.
  7. Steve-o
    Steve-o
    Welcome Barbara! Glad to see another Petersen owner. My "quiver" contains just one - a Level 3 OM that I really enjoy. How do you like the cittern and mandola?
    Steve
  8. otterly2k
    otterly2k
    hi folks.
    love my Brian Dean OM and the one I built in Don Kawalek's workshop.
    Have hosted Philly CBOM-o-RAMA and attended the one Avi hosted in NJ last fall.
    I love the specialized sound and versatility of this instrument.
  9. Steve-o
    Steve-o
    Hi Karen! Glad you could join us. Love your Brian Dean and otter OMs and really enjoyed the NJ CBOM-o-rama thread. Wish I could have been there.
    Steve
  10. John Durkan
    John Durkan
    I love my OM. bought it in Ireland about ten yrs ago and found it great at first for learning new things and then transferring them to mando. Helped me improve my fingering. Now I have a few tunes that I save just for it
  11. fingersbill
    fingersbill
    Just received my OM and I am in love. My wife is threatning me over it. It is really going to be a close call.
  12. John Kelly
    John Kelly
    Amandalyn said:

    "hello, I have an Old Wave Guitar shape Octave- easy to play and great tone! Glad to have the group here- looking for tabs/videos of OM."

    If you look on YouTube under TheOldBores there are some clips of my self-built octave being used to play some Celtic tunes such as Campbell's Farewell, Lord Inchiquin and Rakes of Kildare. I use tabs for the mandolin generally, though there are some tunes which might require refingering owing the the longer scale of the octave. I generally find that I can stretch reasonably easily on the octave, and it is great for chords and accompanying vocals.

    This looks like it could be an interesting group!
  13. Ed Goist
    Ed Goist
    Hi All; Glad to bump this thread to mention that I'll be receiving an '09 Weber Hyalite D-Hole octave mandolin in a few days.
    I'm really excited about owning a large scale mandolin family instrument, and I look forward to participating in this group as well.
    Once I've gotten to know the OM, I'll be sure to post a clip here.
  14. Steve-o
    Steve-o
    Welcome Ed. Looking forward to your sound clips. Enjoy that Weber.
  15. Ed Goist
    Ed Goist
    Thanks Steve. I am pretty much blown away by all aspects of this instrument.
    Excellent Fit, Finish, Appearance, Build Quality, Playability and Tone!...I'm impressed!
    Here's a short video of my favorite Jig:

  16. Steve-o
    Steve-o
    Ed,
    Sounds good. That Weber has a very nice tone. Is it a flat top, induced arch, or carved top?

    Glad to see you are getting the pinky involved early on. That's important (and will also improve your mandolin playing).
  17. Ed Goist
    Ed Goist
    Hi Steve,
    Thanks very much.
    It has a carved top and back.
    It's funny, I was instinctively using the pinkie for fretting the fifth fret without even thinking about it (guitar muscle memory?). The challenge is going immediately back and forth between OM and mandolin...This can lead to humorous and embarrassing fretting miscalculations! Hoping this will pass.
    I really like the playability of the Weber OM...Great set-up, action, neck profile, fret size and radius (10").
    I look forward to getting to know it better.
    Jim Richter strongly recommended Tim O'Brien's DVD for Mandolin & Bouzouki at his mandolin Camp this past weekend. Any other learning resources I should be looking into?
  18. Steve-o
    Steve-o
    Hi Ed,
    Wow, a carved top! Deluxe. I have the Tim O DVD and I agree that it is a good resource. I also have Mickey Cochran's "Intro to the Octave Mandolin" (which features Mickey on a Weber OM) and John McGann's "A Guide to the Octave Mandolin and Bouzouki." Mickey's DVD is okay for a true beginner, but I quickly got bored with it, although I confess that I have a tendency to pick up teaching resources, start out learning from them, then losing interest. John's book and CD is a good resource for the intermediate to advanced student, but is not a book to pick up if you simply want to learn tunes. There's a thread or two on the forum discussing OM teaching resources if you do a thorough search.

    How was Jim Richter's camp?
  19. Ed Goist
    Ed Goist
    Hi Steve:
    The carved top on the Hyalite, combined with its D-hole and the Mahogany back & sides gives it a wonderful deep resonate sound. Love it!
    Jim's Camp was flat-out fantastic! I learned tons (and, of course, was also humbled by how much more there is to learn), and got to meet and jam with so many fine, like-minded folks. What a great weekend!
    Another attendee also brought a Weber OM (an f-hole 'Big Sky'). It was interesting how different these two OMs sounded. I'd describe the Hyalite as sounding open, warm, and resonate, while the Big Sky sounded focused, 'ringing', and compressed.
    In several of the jams we were playing them both, providing the low-end rhythm, and that sounded just awesome while playing Rock tunes!
    Oh, and thanks for the info on the learning resources. I think I'll start with Tim O's DVD and go from there.
  20. Ray(T)
    Ray(T)
    Hi all.
    I've been playing mandolin and guitar for 40+ years. I don't actually have an octave mandolin ......... but there's one coming on Wednesday!!!!!!
    Ray
  21. sloanypal
    sloanypal
    Congrats Ray! What are you getting?
  22. Ray(T)
    Ray(T)
    ...... oh - just some guitar bodied thing made by someone called Clark! It'll be interesting to see if I can actually play the thing.
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