Cohen Quartet

[Dave Cohen]

A friend of mine took some nice photos of some of my instruments for an article that American Lutherie is doing on me. I compressed a photo of the quartet for posting here. From left to right, the instruments are an A mandocello, a C# octave mandolin, a two-point oval hole mandola, and a slotted headstock classical A mandolin.

http://www.Cohenmando.com

[Jill McAuley]

Beautiful work there!

Cheers,
Jill

[Fretbear]

Very nice mandocello....

[Ken Olmstead]

Just wrap 'em up, I'll take them all!! Nice family portrait!

[Gerry Cassidy]

Oh...My...Word...! and I am only 20 minutes away from your shop... this is not good!

They all look pretty darn amazing. Wonderful work, Dr. Cohen!

[Skip Kelley]

Nice looking quartet!!

[acruzn]

Dr Dave,

those are real nice looking and i bet they sound great! i detect 3 redwood tops, what is the slotted headstock mandolin top?

out of curiousity, why a slotted mandolin headstock? could it be that this mando is toned to favor classical music?

angel

[Dale Ludewig]

Beautiful.

[JEStanek]

Very nice portrait. Lovely.

Jamie

[Randi Gormley]

I never really understood the attraction of the scroll and points, but this did it for me. They're beautiful.

[Jake Wildwood]

Very cool.

[RichM]

As long as we're talking Cohens, thought I'd share this photo of my C#... fantastic mando!

[Rick Turner]

You may compress the photo, but please don't compress the gorgeous instruments!

[Bill Halsey]

Thanks for posting your beautiful and interesting instruments, Dave. I'd love to try that 2-pt!

[Dfyngravity]

That classical A is a special mandolin. I was floored when I played....just an incredible sounding mandolin.

[Charles E.]

Dr. Dave, what is a C# octave mandolin? Nice quartet, any chance of a video of them being played together some time in the future?

[Bill Snyder]

C# is the designation, such as an A-style, F-style and C#-style.
I believe there are a few other luthiers that use that designation.

[Dave Cohen]

I've been out of town since 08/01/'09.

Re "C#": I can't take any credit for the origin of that term. Seems to me that I got it from either Bill Bussman or from Mike Kemnitzer. I don't remember which, but I'm sure that they and possibly others were using that terminology long before I got to it. It is a somewhat whimsical term for a mandolin family instruyment that is halfway in ornamental shape between and "A" and an "F" style instrument...., as in A, B, C, C#, D, E, F, i.e., using western "standard" musical notation as an analogy. Some luthiers use the "C#" designation for a two-point body style instrument, but to each his/her own.

http://www.Cohenmando.com

[Gerry Cassidy]

I had the chance to play all four of these wonderful mandos a couple days ago. As you can tell from the pics they are all very nice. They play as nice as they look.

I gotta say that 'Cello talked to me. Wow.

I WILL own one someday!

[mrmando]

out of curiousity, why a slotted mandolin headstock? could it be that this mando is toned to favor classical music?

If you are trying to conduct the orchestra and play your mandolin at the same time, the slot gives you a place to hang your baton while you're playing a solo.