What qualities does a Neapolitan mandolin have?

[Jacqke]

Ok. Here is what is on Wikipedia.

Bowlback

The Neapolitan style, known as a round-back or bowl-back, has an almond-shaped body resembling a bowl, constructed from curved strips of wood. It usually has a bent sound table, canted in two planes with the design to take the tension of metal strings. A hardwood fingerboard sits on top of or is is flush with the sound table. Very old instruments may use wooden tuning pegs, while newer instruments tend to use geared metal tuners. The bridge is a movable length of hardwood. A tortoise-shell pick guard is glued below the sound hole under the strings.

That is simple description. What is a bowl backed instrument to you? Is it the "Neapolitan" style only that should be considered for the description? What makes this style good? What is missing from this description?

[carbonpiou]

Hello, Jacqke !

I am French and my Latin culture makes that I play still much on Neapolitan mandolines bowlback.
The Neapolitan mandoline appeared around 1750 thanks to the Neapolitan violin makers. These violin makers being up to that point accustomed to built violins, they took again the tuning of this instrument which they knew very well: G D A E.
The form bowlback was especially intended to solve 4 problems:
- to increase the power and sound projection with a volume of case reduced,
- To ensure an optimal sound balance on all the extent of the sound spectrum of the instrument.
- To be able to carry out a case of large volume, without resorting to pieces of wood of large surface, because the good wood of stringed-instrument trade was rare.
- To ensure a great rigidity.

The Neapolitan mandoline also recognizes by its neck narrow (22mm maximum at the nut neck, sometimes 18ou 19 mm). It was very rare to play chords on this instrument and it was very much used by the women. This explains that.
The shape of the table, with a fold at the level close to the bridge is intended to increase rigidity, but more especially to increase the angle of the strings on the level of the bridge, therefore to increase the pressure on the table, therefore to increase the sound power

[mrmando]

It's chocolate, strawberry AND vanilla, all in one...

[Beanzy]

For me when played with a hard narrow plectrum a well made bowl on these will resonate and sustain as well as the top does.

What I have noticed is people talk about resonance a lot when describing a good bowl-back mandolin and those instruments have very thin strips of wood. On the less good ones I have played they have not been shaved to such a fine tolerance, so the bowl does not resonate as well as the top, merely becoming an almost passive echo-chamber and so only leaves the top and 'tinkly' or twangy string noises which should only be the icing on the acoustic cake for these instruments.

I have recently been watching two modern builders who are really coming into bloom in this ability to balance the structural need to cope with string tension and the counterbalancing need to allow all parts of the instrument to resonate as fully as possible, while avoiding 'wolf' notes on open string tunings. The more I listen to these mandolins the better my ear tunes into what is making the voice really work well in those instruments I like.

[ombudsman]

The design is clearly an adaptation of the oud.

I don't have a lot of experience with them, but I recently got a bowlback mandola and was amazed by the sustain and volume. Not just the length of sustain, but also the curve, the amount of volume that it retains as the note dies out. The dropoff seems much less steep compared to an acoustic guitar, upright bass, or violin (played pizzicato obviously).

[JeffD]

One of the things missing in any physical description is the mojo.

Playing the bowl back mandolin one can't help think of the poses of all those angels and cherubim holding mandolins, in all those paintings. The paintings infer that when playing music to honor God, one can't do a whole lot better than to play it on a bowl back mandolin. (For sure they weren't playing spoons.)

The bowl back has become part of the imagery of music itself. The G clef, the eighth note, the bowl back mandolin, the violin. When the general public see these things, they see music.

And of all the mandolins, what type is most likely to be recognized by the musically uninformed? The bowl back.

To hold a bowl back and see your hands holding it, and to know that people have been playing instruments of that general shape, mandolins, bouzoukis, lutes, for many centuries... well, its as if the ancestors and precursors console you and encourage you. By the way, if you include the oud, then the tradition goes back at least 5000 years. Some say all the way back to the seventh generation after Adam, which is before Bill Monroe, by the way.

Anything you play on a bowl back feels magical as you contemplate the grand and ancient tradition you are a part of.

[JeffD]

Oh, and chicks dig 'em.

It took some getting used to, all the attention suddenly coming my way when I picked up the bowl back. And these are not guitar women, for whom its enough to look shaggy, hollow eyed, and unemployable. No, these are substantive educated women with taste and discernment.


Well, ok, but it could happen, right?

[JeffD]

Back to the physical - I really enjoy the compact-ness of the bowl back. It feels like a single instrument, not like a weight on the end of a stick. Compact, small and powerful.

[August Watters]

Lots of good info already in this thread, but I could add: there's a distinction to be made between the Neapolitan instrument and the Roman instrument, which has a long and parallel history. The Roman luthiers introduced ideas that were widely adapted (including v-shaped necks, arched fingerboards and the CGDA mandola), and others that were not (narrower and more trapezoidal necks, taller bridges, sharper cants). Then there's the German Seiffert-style bowlback, a recent invention and a completely different design.

American classical mandolinists have usually preferred the carved top/back design, but that may be changing - seems like the bowlback is a lot more visible lately!

[Jim Garber]

Yes, thank you, August... I was about to same some of the same things. The Neapolitan-style mandolin is a bowlback but nopt all bowlbacks are Neapolitan. In fact there are regional variants in italy such as the Brescian (gut/nylon and single strung) and other ones that are even not tuned GDAE.

[brunello97]

For me, our friend, Martin Jonas, nailed it best when he described the 'shimmering sound' of a Neapolitan bowlback.

That's what I know.

Mick

[High Lonesome Valley]

I recently heard a Neapolitan mandolin song on a movie set in Italy. Absolutely shimmering.

My Italian grandmother-in-law used to tell me "Fa Napoli", but I don't think this was necessarily a good thing.

[Jacqke]

So, do any of the old American bowlbacks come anywhere close to their European counterparts?

[Petrus]

My S.S. Stewart (date uncertain, but fairly vintage) performs adequately, though it probably could use a pro setup. The question is too vague for a good comparison though. I'd like to try a newer bowlback sometime, not necessarily an American ... say a Suzuki, which I've heard good things about.

[Tavy]

So, do any of the old American bowlbacks come anywhere close to their European counterparts?

Well IMO the Vega bowls were possibly the best ever made in that era - the sound and construction is quite different to the Neapolitans though. Horses for courses and all that...

[Elliot Luber]

Do you find them difficult to hold?

[mandroid]

It would come from Naples, Italy, right?

[Petrus]

Playing the bowl back mandolin one can't help think of the poses of all those angels and cherubim holding mandolins, in all those paintings. The paintings infer that when playing music to honor God, one can't do a whole lot better than to play it on a bowl back mandolin. (For sure they weren't playing spoons.)

Not to take issue with your post (which is very well phrased in general, by the way!) I suspect the painters of the time put contemporary (to them) instruments in the hands of the angels, which would explain the mandolins we see. When I think of really ancient instruments, especially of the Levant, I tend more to think of the Kinnor harp, lyre, cithara, and those sorts of instruments. These were really the ancestors of all modern stringed instruments. The oud, etc., came later when some smart luthiers decided it would make for more variety if the player could fret the strings, which required putting a handy neck onto the lyre. From the oud (Arabic for "wood") we get the lute (almost the same word in translation) and all that came after. Mandolins, mandolinettos, guitars, etc., of earlier periods are not easily separable as they had not yet evolved into their distinct modern versions. (Guitars, for instance, were often as small as mandolins; tuning and string count was all over the place.)

An interesting aside: scientists have recently dated what is so far the world's oldest known functional musical instrument, a 9000-year old bone flute from China. The holes in it are clearly arranged in a scale, too. (No 9000-year old mandolins, yet, unfortunately.)

http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/1...lpr092299.html

[Petrus]

Do you find them difficult to hold?

They can be hard to hold standing up, imo, because of how they stick out. They don't seem to be designed for a strap either. Anyway I've never seen anyone play one with a strap. I find they are very easy to play seated and cross-legged, with the bowl resting in one's lap. Sort of Middle Eastern style. The bowl and neck form almost a ball joint with your lap, with a natural center of gravity, and the instrument can easily be rotated around for comfort or to project the sound in a given direction. No risk of dropping it either.

[Bill Clements]

They can be hard to hold standing up, imo, because of how they stick out.

Agreed! Just got my first bowlback, an Eastman. Here's Ugo Orlandi who makes it look so easy.
Note how he lets go of the mandolin with his left hand after the first movement:

[Petrus]

Agreed! Just got my first bowlback, an Eastman. Here's Ugo Orlandi who makes it look so easy.

Now that's some good pickin' there. I bet Ugo could give Chris Thile a run for his money.

[JeffD]

Do you find them difficult to hold?

I started on the bowl, so back then holding any instrument was awkward feeling.

I generally play strapless and sitting down if at all possible, so its about the same as with any other mandolin, for me.

[John Cadd]

The internal bowl shape of instruments does not get talked about much . But if you built a hall like a bowlback what would the acoustics be like? And if you were in the audience would you sit in the thin end or the thick end ? The floor would rise at one end so maybe that would be the stage. Remember the curved bowl is the roof. Flat roofs are no good .

[Jim Garber]

The internal bowl shape of instruments does not get talked about much . But if you built a hall like a bowlback what would the acoustics be like? And if you were in the audience would you sit in the thin end or the thick end ? The floor would rise at one end so maybe that would be the stage. Remember the curved bowl is the roof. Flat roofs are no good .

This one looks like the inside of a bowlback: https://smtd.umich.edu/facilities/hill-auditorium/

Some discussion here of auditorium shapes: https://www.constructionspecifier.co...s-with-curves/

[Tavy]

The internal bowl shape of instruments does not get talked about much . But if you built a hall like a bowlback what would the acoustics be like? And if you were in the audience would you sit in the thin end or the thick end ? The floor would rise at one end so maybe that would be the stage. Remember the curved bowl is the roof. Flat roofs are no good .

As far as the acoustic of the instrument goes, the shape of the bowl matters very little compared to it's overall volume. There's also some good research that shows bowlback backs participate very little if at all in the vibrational modes of the instrument, so they're more like the "immovable object" than an active participant. Remember also that since the sound is produced *at the soundhole* via the pumping of air to-and-fro as the instrument vibrates, so whatever is going on inside is largely irrelevant to what you hear outside. That said, if you want something to sound like a bowlback does, then the design is a very good one, flat top mandolins with wider more flexible tops, active backs and every resonance coupled to every other one work quite differently.