Re: Mandolins, Mandolas, Mandoloncellos at the BDZ Eurofestival
Wait... so a "tenor mandola" is just a regular (American, sorry) mandola? And the American octave mandolin (gdae) is called an octave mandola? But "mandola" implies cgda, doesn't it?
"Mandola" doesn't always imply CGDA tuning. Check out the European string makers, usually "mandola" means GDAE, as in this page from the Optima site. GDAE is the usual tuning for the Italian and German orchestral mandola. Although as Graham points out, there's some question about the history of that. My understanding of that history comes from Alex Timmerman, who (please correct if I'm wrong, Alex!) describes CGDA mandola tuning as late-19th-century development intended for mandolin quartet use.
"Tenor mandola" usually means CGDA tuning, but unfortunately in Italian, "mandola tenore" means GDAE tuning. "Mandola en Sol" also means GDAE tuning (with "sol" being fixed-do solfege for "G," the lowest string of GDAE tuning).
CGDA mandola tuning is predominant in the west obviously. However in Italy both Dogal and Galli use "mandola contralto" to mean CGDA, and "mandola tenore" to mean GDAE tuning.
And then there's the "octave mandola" . . . .
Last edited by August Watters; May-28-2018 at 2:36pm.
Exploring Classical Mandolin (Berklee Press, 2015)
Progressive Melodies for Mandocello (KDP, 2019) (2nd ed. 2022)
New Solos for Classical Mandolin (Hal Leonard Press, 2020)
2021 guest artist, mandocello: Classical Mandolin Society of America
Bookmarks