Is there any reson to buy a waldzither if you have a mandola?

Is there any reason to buy a waldzither if you have a mandolin, mandola and an octave mandolin?

IMHO, if you can afford it, you should buy whatever calls out to you. I bought a flute a week ago, and I've never played a flute in my life. ;)

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Originally Posted by Sue Rieter

IMHO, if you can afford it, you should buy whatever calls out to you. I bought a flute a week ago, and I've never played a flute in my life. ;)

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Sure, i just wonder if it will give me any different sound/experience. I do buy whaatever I want but I have more than 40 string instruments by now :-)

Difficult to say. If you keep the original (open C) tuning of the waldzither, it's certainly a different experience than a mandola or octave mandolin. If tuned in fifths (or thereabouts), it's closer to the mandola but still usually with a rather different tone quality well suited to early music, for example. Here is a recent recording I made of a renaissance madrigal on a 1925 waldzither (not a Boehm), tuned GDAEA:


https://youtu.be/aveim0FSMm0

Martin

I have several waldzitterns, and perhaps the best reason for me was to change (one of them) from a 9 to a 10 string instrument, making the lowest chore double strings. Obviously it needed a new set of tuning pegs for that, and it needed lot of work to make it playable and presentable again. So another reason to buy one is for the pleasure of repairing an old instrument and making it better. I now use it as a side instrument for outside, in an open tuning (ADAEA).

I had a pluckthun(?) waldzither modified for use as an octave mandolin. The neck was really big, but it had a great, resonant sound. PM me if you'd like to know more, Poul!

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Originally Posted by Marien

I have several waldzitterns, and perhaps the best reason for me was to change (one of them) from a 9 to a 10 string instrument, making the lowest chore double strings. Obviously it needed a new set of tuning pegs for that, and it needed lot of work to make it playable and presentable again. So another reason to buy one is for the pleasure of repairing an old instrument and making it better. I now use it as a side instrument for outside, in an open tuning (ADAEA).

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There are some waldzithers that were built as 10-strings from the start -- I have one of them (not the one in the video above)! On mine, the original string configuration was 2+2+2+2+1+1, i.e. two single bass strings, one of them fretted (as with other waldzithers) and one free, sitting outside the fretboard on a little ledge extending sideways from the nut. I've cut a new nut to change it to five double courses, which was fairly straightforward. Mine is a fairly short scale, so I've tuned it CGDAE, i.e. the combined mandola and mandolin range. It needs a very thin E string but works.

Martin