# Music by Genre > Old-Time, Roots, Early Country, Cajun, Tex-Mex >  Was the mandolin played in traditional folk before Bill Monroe?

## abalter

Was there any sort of tradition or history of mandolin playing in American, Brittish, or Celtic folk music prior to Bill Monroe and bluegrass?

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## Charles E.

Yes, very much so. The mandolin was used in Old Time stringband music in the 20's and 30's and beyond. It was also popular with jugband and blues musicians in the same time period. There is a lot of good recorded material out there once you start digging.

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abalter, 

DavidKOS, 

John Van Zandt, 

Simon DS

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## Charles E.

Doc Roberts for one example........

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abalter, 

Denis Kearns, 

John Van Zandt, 

Simon DS, 

Timbofood

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## Ranald

> Yes, very much so. The mandolin was used in Old Time stringband music in the 20's and 30's and beyond. It was also popular with jugband and blues musicians in the same time period. There is a lot of good recorded material out there once you start digging.


Mandolin was also a folk instrument before this time. Rich Del Grosso explains in _Mandolin Blues_, pp.6-7, that mandolins were brought to the USA by Italians in the 1850's, and were first manufactured there in the 1890's by Lyon & Healy. Mandolins were popular before WWI though their use declined after. "But mandolins remained strong in the rural areas  popular with the string- and jug-band performers. It was hard to find a fiddler that didn't double on mandolin. And in the hands of black performers, the mandolin provided a new voice for the blues" (7). 

Except in ethnic pockets, I was not aware of mandolins being popular folk instruments in Canada before the bluegrass era, but my mother, who was born in Prince Edward Island in 1921, said that there were mandolins around during her youth. Furthermore, I recently came across a reference to an Acadian folk musician who played mandolin in the 1930's or 40's. I'm not sure of the source -- _Mandolin Cafe_? The more I learn about folk music, the more I realize that it tends to be played on whatever instruments are available, such as mandolins, which were relatively inexpensive and sold through department store mail-order catalogues. As well, as DelGrosso suggests, mandolin is a good second instrument for anyone who plays fiddle, but wants a different sound, and vice versa.

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DavidKOS

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## mrmando

Heck, Bill Monroe himself played folk mandolin before he started the Blue Grass Boys! Just listen to his recordings with his brother Charlie. 

Just for the record, bluegrass is not "traditional folk" music. Nobody sat out on the back porch and played bluegrass for the neighbors until decades after Monroe et al. developed the style as a subgenre of commercial country music.

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acousticphd, 

DavidKOS, 

doc holiday, 

Jim Nollman

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## abalter

Right! That's what I'm trying to uncover. I think sometimes a mandolin at a traditionalist old-time session is looked at as not belonging--being a bluegrass instrument. Sometimes I sort of feel like that myself. I was hoping to be convinced that the mandolin has been part of the folk tradition at some level before Bluegrass.

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DavidKOS

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## mrmando

It's certainly an important instrument in African-American string band music. White old-time string bands like the Skillet Lickers used it, but less frequently.

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DavidKOS

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## mrmando

If you bring a mandolin to an old-time session, don't play it like a bluegrass mandolin. No chop chords in old-time!

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## EdHanrahan

> ... sometimes a mandolin at a traditionalist old-time session is looked at as not belonging--being a bluegrass instrument.


Keep in mind that, with a few notable exceptions, a "bluegrass" mandolin *is* an F-5 mandolin.  But in the early '20s, Lloyd Loar did NOT set out to design the F-5 as a bluegrass instrument - there'd be no bluegrass for several more decades.  He DID set out, and largely failed, to design the F-5 as a _classical_ instrument.  Of course, THAT fact probably won't help endear it to the old-timey set but, hey, why let the truth get in the way!

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DavidKOS, 

Timbofood

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## JeffD

[QUOTE=abalter;1737833]Right! That's what I'm trying to uncover. I think sometimes a mandolin at a traditionalist old-time session is looked at as not belonging--being a bluegrass instrument. /QUOTE]

I think what you are seeing is perhaps a fear that you are going to bluegrass all over their old time session. Its a prejudice for sure, but not unfounded. Its not that you are not welcome, but that, for better or worse, they need to see that you can avoid chopping and refrain from taking or expecting an improvised break, and that you at least try to play the tune.

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## David Lewis

Nearly all the early photos in the Burns' documentary have a mandolin - mostly oval holes.

The rule is, I think - if it's not bluegrass, no chop. I understand there were occasional choppers in early music, but they were a bit different to Monroe...

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## sgarrity

For anyone that says an F5 mando doesn’t belong in old time, point them to Caleb Klauder and the Fog Horn Stringband or Mike Compton’s playing with John Hartford.

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cayuga red, 

Gary Alter, 

lowtone2, 

Paul Kotapish, 

Timbofood

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## Jon Hall

The Fiddlin' Powers Family first recorded in 1924 with Orpha Powers on mandolin. The young lady had some chops on the mandolin.

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## ralph johansson

[QUOTE=JeffD;1737848]


> Right! That's what I'm trying to uncover. I think sometimes a mandolin at a traditionalist old-time session is looked at as not belonging--being a bluegrass instrument. /QUOTE]
> 
> I think what you are seeing is perhaps a fear that you are going to bluegrass all over their old time session. Its a prejudice for sure, but not unfounded. Its not that you are not welcome, but that, for better or worse, they need to see that you can avoid chopping and refrain from taking or expecting an improvised break, and that you at least try to play the tune.


https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/e...awing-the-Line

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lowtone2

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## A 4

> Right! That's what I'm trying to uncover. I think sometimes a mandolin at a traditionalist old-time session is looked at as not belonging--being a bluegrass instrument. Sometimes I sort of feel like that myself. I was hoping to be convinced that the mandolin has been part of the folk tradition at some level before Bluegrass.


I  think the responses above are clear that it was around in the old days - at least sometimes.  

I often think, in terms of open old time jams, that there is not a natural fit for mandolin.  You start with a fiddle, and that is awesome.  Add a banjo, and you have a great combination of rhythm and melody.  Then a guitar player comes along, and you get the chords played fully in a way the fiddle can't, and it become extra luscious.  And everybody gets more happy when the bass joins in with that strong low-end beat.  Now you come along with your mandolin, and what is missing that the mandolin can fill?  The melody range overlaps the fiddle, and if the fiddle is not well intonated, makes the mandolin sound out of tune.  Chords are already there with a guitar, the guitar and bass together have the rhythm and beats one, two, three and four filled up.  Banjo takes care of any syncopated boppity-boppity, so what's left?

Not this is a problem, say, with friends, or giant jams where everything goes, or when some of the other instruments are not present.  Or even a problem, just something I think about in the way that I think about not playing chop chords in an oldtime jam.

I think I see a lot more mandolins at old time festivals than when I started going four or five years ago.  Anyone agree?

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## ukenukem

I can imagine a mandolin providing counter melody to the fiddle or perhaps arpeggios. BUT that is from my "modern ear" perspective, I've never done must OT Folk.

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## Dagger Gordon

Bill's earliest recordings seem to be about 1937, so most of the folk music local people would play in their own areas before then would not have been documented much and probably never recorded.

I realise that your question is probably mainly directed at American cafe members, but I have come across or heard of at least three banjo/mandolins in the Easter Ross area of the North of Scotland - one of which I now own. 
I used to know an old man who led a dance band and he was a banjo/mandolin player. I was also told that a farmer near where I live (who I never met) used to play the mandolin. This would have been probably around the 1940s I should think.

These people would almost certainly have not been familiar with Monroe's music. I suspect their music would have been a mix of Scottish music and the popular songs of the day.

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## DavidKOS

> Was there any sort of tradition or history of mandolin playing in American, Brittish, or Celtic folk music prior to Bill Monroe and bluegrass?


I've read the whole thread.

My one question back - and it has been touched upon - what about the *Italians* that brought their invention, the mandolin, to America and played Italian folk traditional music on it before even the boom of mandolin orchestras, American folk mandolin, etc.?

Plus there was a lot of mention of mandolins in New Orleans between 1880-1910 or so, as being used in "string bands", which in that context meant indoor groups w/o brass.

There are a number of folk mandolin traditions in America.

http://www.offbeat.com/articles/new-...f-the-century/

"There were three main types of ensemble performing around New Orleans from the 1880s to 1917: brass bands (for funerals), society orchestras and string bands. Being smaller and in demand in more diverse settings, the string ensembles had more flexibility and were expected to entertain with up-to-date songs and dancing music.

...

The string bands that performed at Anderson’s Annex potentially had some of the most important traits of the new music that would come to be called jazz: a swinging rhythm built on the bass’ harmonic foundation; sophisticated soloists mixing virtuoso technical ability; Eurocentric harmonies and forms (and probably a Latin lilt to boot), with syncopated rhythms (giving an element of surprise); personal expression; and individual and collective improvisation, within the repetitive forms of up-to- date pop songs, including blues."




TWO bowlbacks!  In the only city in America with a Sicilian majority in its Italian community - which is now one of the largest ethnic groups in New Orleans.

from a pre-Katrina WIKI:

"New Orleans has a historical Italian-American population. As of 2004 those identifying as of Italian descent were the* largest ethnic group of Europeans* in the New Orleans Metropolitan Area, numbering around 250,000"

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brunello97, 

Jairo Ramos Parra, 

John Van Zandt, 

Ranald, 

T.D.Nydn

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## Brian560

I would think there would have been a lot of Italian folk mandolin music being played in New York City before Bill Monroe’s time. I wonder how much of it has been documented.

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DavidKOS

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## Ranald

> I've read the whole thread.
> 
> My one question back - and it has been touched upon - what about the *Italians* that brought their invention, the mandolin, to America and played Italian folk traditional music on it before even the boom of mandolin orchestras, American folk mandolin, etc.?
> 
> Plus there was a lot of mention of mandolins in New Orleans between 1880-1910 or so, as being used in "string bands", which in that context meant indoor groups w/o brass.
> 
> There are a number of folk mandolin traditions in America...
> 
> http://www.offbeat.com/articles/new-...f-the-century/


Thanks for the interesting comments and article, David. In your country and mine, we often use the terms "folk" and "traditional" to refer to music which belonged to (often rural) elements within the mainstream culture, and forget that other ethnic groups and subcultures also had their own traditional music. Often when cultures meet, music is heard and shared. Music of one group may well influence neighbours (listen to the mandolin and fiddle player, Howard Armstrong discuss who's music he learned, in the film "Louie Bluie"). I think most of us are aware that "white" music of the American south (and now all over the US) is greatly influenced by Afro-American musical styles, and vice versa. Similarly Cape Breton "Scottish" music has been strongly affected by the musical traditions of Irish and French neighbours, as well as by many fiddling styles encountered as Cape Bretoners travelled throughout Canada and the US for work. A great many polkas from Germany and eastern Europe (e.g., "Beer Barrel Polka") have made their way into the wider North American folk repertoire, as have Italian and other European folksongs ("Funiculi, Funicula"). There's been a movement in my adult life (called "EthnoFusion" in 1980's Toronto) in which members of various ethnic group get together and combine the sounds of their musical traditions and instruments to create something new. As you suggest, it's not right to ignore American Italian music in a discussion of folk tradition.

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Charles E., 

DavidKOS

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## Hypoxia

My Scot-heritage grandfather, an Ohio railwayman, played a fat-belly mandolin before WWI and a banjo-mandolin afterward. AFAIK his musical approach was LOUD. Fiddles and guitars did not overwhelm him. Much of what we consider "old time" music was for dancing, same as blues and classical suites. A resonator instrument provides necessary volume.

What genres did Gramps play when he wasn't railroading? Italian, pop-jazz, hill music, stomps, polkas, oom-pahs, drinking songs, etc. The usual then.

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## JeffD

> I often think, in terms of open old time jams, that there is not a natural fit for mandolin.  You start with a fiddle, and that is awesome.  Add a banjo, and you have a great combination of rhythm and melody.  Then a guitar player comes along, and you get the chords played fully in a way the fiddle can't, and it become extra luscious.  And everybody gets more happy when the bass joins in with that strong low-end beat.  Now you come along with your mandolin, and what is missing that the mandolin can fill?


How it was explained to me: A fiddle and a fretless banjo are the perfect old time machine. Each providing what the other needs. (Guitars came along, and were at first threatening because they imposed frets and intonation on everyone.) You come up to this perfect old time machine with your mandolin. What are you going to add?

That said, there are a variety of tastefull ways ways a mandolin can contribute to an old time jam, without chopping of course, and without (IMO) adding too  many of those bluegrassy slidy things. But I often double or harmonize the fiddle, or provide a kind of rolling rhythm that works well. My Harvard and Yale of old time tasteful mandolin is the Blue Sky Boys. 




> I think I see a lot more mandolins at old time festivals than when I started going four or five years ago.  Anyone agree?


Over the course of the last 20 years i have seen a lot more mandolins in everything, old time, Irish, New England, contradance bands, etc. For years I was the only mandolinner I knew.

So if your observation is correct, it is likely just an indication of greater mandolin participation in everything, and not something about old time. 

IMO.

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## Jim Garber

> I would think there would have been a lot of Italian folk mandolin music being played in New York City before Bill Monroe’s time. I wonder how much of it has been documented.


*Giovanni Giovale* lived in New York for a few years and was recorded there. Giovanni Vicari was another virtuoso player who lived in NYC. There were other Italian plyers in New York who were not named Giovanni.  :Smile:

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DavidKOS

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## Jim Nollman

How about mandolin playing melody with just banjo and bass. Great fun. And add a fiddle to let the mandolin play double stop unison melody and sometimes focus only on G and D string double stops or double stop harmony.

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## wormpicker

Here in the Front Range of Colorado, old-time jams are very open to mandolins.  In fact, the legendary Wednesday night old-time jam in Boulder, which just ended last year after more than 40 years, was hosted by old-time mandolinist Jeff Haemer. I’m mostly an old-time fiddler (albeit a poor one), but I was inspired to pick up mandolin by some great local and semi-local OT mandolinists, including Jeff Haemer, Dave Firestine, and Mark Chambers (actually from Tucson, AZ, but he’s been coming up to our CROMA festival for the past several summers). Chirps Smith, also a CROMA regular, I believe started out on mandolin before picking up fiddle, and plays the mandolin part on some of the old Volo Bogtrotters albums.

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## brunello97

> [B][U][URL="http://www.mandoisland.com/?p=3017"] There were other Italian plyers in New York who were not named Giovanni.


Yes, some were named John.  And even Juan.

Mick

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## DiegoInSeneca

Someone at that "traditionalist old-time session" was making up his own traditions, without doing his homework.

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## DiegoInSeneca

Not everyone gets "more happy" (sic) when the bass joins in.  The guitar can handle rhythm just fine, since that's the guitar's job.  Besides, who in right mind would describe Riley Puckett's playing as "extra luscious?"

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## Ranald

There were many "old time" or "hillbilly," and ragtime and blues players in the States before Bill and influencing Bill. That's not even getting into other countries.

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## allenhopkins

1.  Did a bit of internet looking up a few years ago, for a Cafe thread, and found mention of mandolin being taught in the pre-Revolution colonies, by a Spanish music teacher, and a letter from South Carolina in Civil War times, mentioning taking a mandolin to a picnic to observe the shelling of forts in Charleston harbor.  The instrument was around, probably in very limited numbers, before the Spanish Students concert and Italian immigration put it "center stage" in the US.

2. Those who question the role of mandolin in old-time music, in the past or the present, have to listen to the late Kenny Hall -- yes you do...

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DavidKOS, 

journeybear

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## mingusb1

Interesting thread--thanks. I've spent lots of time playing at fiddler's conventions in North Carolina and Virginia over the last 20 years and I'd like to say I don't find the "rules" about mandolin (or bass) in oldtime to be nearly as rigid as they are sometimes described. If you can pick, know the oldtime melodies and good backup techniques (open chords, double stops, and yes, even chop chords), and can use your ears you're a welcome addition to oldtime jamming here.

Cheers,
Z

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j. condino, 

Ky Slim, 

lowtone2

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## JeffD

double post. These zombie threads!

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## Ky Slim

> Was there any sort of tradition or history of mandolin playing in American, Brittish, or Celtic folk music prior to Bill Monroe and bluegrass?


Bill Monroe himself even played mandolin before Bill Monroe played bluegrass mandolin.  As a youngster in the teens and early '20s he was given the mandolin to play because his older brothers were already playing the guitar and fiddle

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Ranald

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## lowtone2

> For anyone that says an F5 mando doesnt belong in old time, point them to Caleb Klauder and the Fog Horn Stringband or Mike Comptons playing with John Hartford.





> I've read the whole thread.
> 
> My one question back - and it has been touched upon - what about the *Italians* that brought their invention, the mandolin, to America and played Italian folk traditional music on it before even the boom of mandolin orchestras, American folk mandolin, etc.?
> 
> Plus there was a lot of mention of mandolins in New Orleans between 1880-1910 or so, as being used in "string bands", which in that context meant indoor groups w/o brass.
> 
> There are a number of folk mandolin traditions in America.
> 
> http://www.offbeat.com/articles/new-...f-the-century/
> ...


Tampa had a Sicilian majority in its Italian community as well. The Sicilians originally came to central Florida to work on the sugar cane plantations, but many moved from there to the cigar factories in Tampa and the thriving communities connected to them, ybor city and west tampa, and joined the cubans and spanish working there. Ybor City had it's own newspaper, printed in three languages. I have heard that the tradition of sicilian folk music was continued there, but it was not documented that I know of, and had either disappeared or become very obscure by the 1950s.

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brunello97, 

DavidKOS, 

lenf12

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## grassrootphilosopher

I think y´all should ask your elders. Who has (had) a parent/grandparent/greatgrandparent that was active (a schoolkid) in the 20ies and 30ies... All of you know, that there was a lot of folk and whatnot mandolin music out there.

My dad was a kid in a oneroom schoolhouse (somewhat near Berlin). His teacher (Lehrer Wegener - who died the Ira Hayes death walking home inebriated) asked the class who wanted to play mandolin. My dad certainly raised his finger (as would have my son). Can you imagine what my grandpa said and did when my father - unbeknownst to my grandparents - came home with a plinka di plunk... mandolin... But there was a lot of folk and other kind of mandolin music around....

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## Hendrik Ahrend

> I think y´all should ask your elders. Who has (had) a parent/grandparent/greatgrandparent that was active (a schoolkid) in the 20ies and 30ies... All of you know, that there was a lot of folk and whatnot mandolin music out there.
> 
> My dad was a kid in a oneroom schoolhouse (somewhat near Berlin). His teacher (Lehrer Wegener - who died the Ira Hayes death walking home inebriated) asked the class who wanted to play mandolin. My dad certainly raised his finger (as would have my son). Can you imagine what my grandpa said and did when my father - unbeknownst to my grandparents - came home with a plinka di plunk... mandolin... But there was a lot of folk and other kind of mandolin music around....


Sounds familiar, Olaf. My dad's old man played folk songs and other music on the accordion, guitar and mandolin (a tater bug, I happened to find in my dad's closet in the late '60s). Right after WWI (but even before) there was a lot of reinventing of older pastimes going on, such as singing/playing folk songs, hiking (while picking) and even reimagining baroque music (and instrument) styles. It was generally part of the so called German Youth Movement. 
And yes, there was plenty of folk mandolin in the US before Monroe; check this out: https://www.mandolincafe.com/archives/article.html

After his days with his brother Charlie, Bill Monroe did not set out to play just another type of folk music. His music, especially the driving rhythm and the role of the mandolin, defined a whole new approach of country music, meant as, well pop music, as in popular, up-to-date music, which was to be played in concert settings rather than around barns and campfires. Robert Cantwell (The Making of the Southern Sound) is a fine read in this context.

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## brunello97

Always a good time to put in a plug for our great friend Sheri's "Mandolins, Like Salami".

A great book, one every mandolin player should read.

Is the Italian / Italian-American tradition of 'ballo liscio' music that Sheri has so tirelessly preserved and compiled really 'folk' music, since so much of it was composed?

Or are the 'traditional' tunes like those collected in John La Barbara's volumes more representative of "Italian Folk"?

That type of question is far over my head. 
I'll leave that debate to others, but I would find the discussion interesting.  

I just enjoy playing the music whatever it is called.

Mick

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bwnunnally, 

DavidKOS, 

lowtone2

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## allenhopkins

Mandolins were around on both sides of my family.  I have some of my paternal grandfather's mandolin books from the first decade of the 20th century.  My maternal grandfather's second wife, Alice, left two of her mandolins in Grandfather's attic, where I inherited them in the late 1960's.  I still have her B & J Victoria bowl-back; I learned on the Gibson A-1, before it went in trade for an F-2 ±50 years ago.

What music did they play on them?  In the first case, tunes composed for turn-of-the-20th-century mandolin clubs and orchestras; written in standard notation, with 1st and 2nd mandolin parts.  As to what Alice played, no way to know; she died when I was very young, and Grandfather never talked about her music.

As far as I know, I'm the first "generation" to get into traditional folk music, so no indication that my "forebears" played in that style.  But we should remember that folk musicians tended to pick up whatever instruments were available to play.  We think of fiddle and Appalachian dulcimer in the 18th century, both instruments brought over from Europe.  The African-origin banjo shows up in the 19th century, as do the Mediterranean guitar and mandolin.  Free-reed instruments like accordion and harmonica are 19th-century inventions, soon adapted to folk styles; similarly, the Autoharp.  Orchestral instruments like 'cello and bass viol appear infrequently, the latter becoming much more common mid-20th-century, in string band ensembles.

One of the interesting facets of traditional folk music in America, is the scarcity of wind instruments, other than free-reeds like accordion and harmonica.  Other traditions make frequent use of brasses and woodwinds; look at mariachi music, for example, or klezmer.  Celtic traditional music as played in the US frequently incorporates flute and whistle, and I think of _Fishing Blues_ and "Ragtime Texas" Thomas on pan-pipes, though he was close to "one of a kind."

Similarly with percussion: bodhran for Irish musicians, spoons and tambourine from the minstrel stage worked into old-time and gospel, but seldom the fuller percussion found in other non-American traditional styles, African or European.  Our traditional music is basically _string_ music, plucked or bowed, on a wide variety of instruments of different origins.  In that tradition, mandolin occupies a part, not as central as fiddle, banjo and guitar, but significant.

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lenf12

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## Bob Buckingham

My grandfather played mandolin long before bluegrass was a thing. So yeah it was around before then.

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## Bob Gnann

Two weekends ago I found a nice old Bauer bowlback at an estate sale that appears to be in sound structural shape and , I hope, will be playable with a new tail piece and some ultra light strings, both of which I have acquired.  Unfortunately I have also acquired a painful hip injury that has made even walking a tedious adventure.  A trip out to the shop and my work bench and tools will have to wait.
But I have found time to go through many old threads/topics on the forum including this one.  Love the old picture from New Orleans of the four dapper gents and their instruments.  How is it that two of them are playing what certainly appear to be Italian style bowlback mandolins in an African American quartet?  Must have been some cultural interaction going on there.  And that guitar on the far left. A very early double neck.  Is that a mini bass perhaps?  I guess Gibson didn't invent that double neck concept and Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) wasn't the first to make it famous!
Also love the discussion about what we, individually, consider folk music.  I grew up in Niagara Falls, NY where there is a very strong Italian heritage.  Many friends grew up in homes with three generations under one roof.  A couple of them can still understand, and speak some Italian because the grandparents spoke it at home.  Their idea of oldtime or folk music meant music from the old country, Italy or Sicily, where the mandolin was certainly a dominant folk instrument..  So I guess those terms are really relevant to ones culture.  Another part of my cultural enrichment was real Italian food made by a real Nona in the kitchen.  To not eat her cooking was considered a mild insult so I always ate!
And lastly one question.  Just what was a Bogtrotter?  I know I could find it on the Internet but that wouldn't bring about some insight from our knowledgeable group here.

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DavidKOS

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## JeffD

I think the real take away here is to always respect the jam. Even if it is not historically accurate, or not traditional enough, even if it is some weird hybrid of old time and bluegrass and traditional Irish, even if it is ultra orthodox where folks are announcing before hand the tune they are playing and who they learned it from and in whose tradition it is being played, even if it is primarily contra dance music you have played a million times...

Historians and ethnomusicologists and others can discuss afterwards what kind of music was being attempted and in what genre folks were trying to play. But in the moment, listen long and join when and as appropriate and lead when others give you the nod.

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Mainer73

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## Ranald

> T
> And lastly one question.  Just what was a Bogtrotter?  I know I could find it on the Internet but that wouldn't bring about some insight from our knowledgeable group here.


It's an ethnic slur, meaning an Irish person. Don't use it unless you're Irish -- real Irish that is, not North American "Irish."

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## Jim Garber

> Love the old picture from New Orleans of the four dapper gents and their instruments.  How is it that two of them are playing what certainly appear to be Italian style bowlback mandolins in an African American quartet?  Must have been some cultural interaction going on there.  And that guitar on the far left. A very early double neck.  Is that a mini bass perhaps?  I guess Gibson didn't invent that double neck concept and Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) wasn't the first to make it famous!


I am sure there was lots of cultural interraction between different ethnic groups in New Orleans but it is also likely that those bowlbacks were made in the US and were the prominent affordable mandolin style sold at that time. 

As for the "double-neck": it is a harp guitar, essentially a standard six string with (in this case) 4 sub-bass strings. The basses are just plucked (like a harp) and not fretted. For tones of infon on this instrument, go to *https://www.harpguitars.net/*, Gregg Miner's excellent site.

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allenhopkins, 

DavidKOS

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## Mark Gunter

No … Bill Monroe invented the mandolin; he also invented traditional music first, then Bluegrass.

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DavidKOS

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## Bill McCall

> No … Bill Monroe invented the mandolin; he also invented traditional music first, then Bluegrass.


Everybody knows that :Mandosmiley:

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Mark Gunter

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## journeybear

But it ain't no part of nothin'. Being he was so humble, he just went on his way as if nothing had happened.  :Whistling: 




> Right! That's what I'm trying to uncover. I think sometimes a mandolin at a traditionalist old-time session is looked at as not belonging--being a bluegrass instrument.





> I think what you are seeing is perhaps a fear that you are going to bluegrass all over their old-time session. It's a prejudice for sure, but not unfounded. It's not that you are not welcome, but that, for better or worse, they need to see that you can avoid chopping and refrain from taking or expecting an improvised break, and that you at least try to play the tune.


That's what I was thinking - prejudice. People at a traditionalist and/or old-time session might see a mandolin being unpacked and think "bluegrass," not being aware - as most of us actually involved with the instrument - of its many capabilities in many other genres.

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