Why did you start playing a cbom?

[Tom Haywood]

Needed a specialty instrument for a Middle Eastern sound; built a full scale Irish bouzouki; now have to learn to play it.

[Colin Lindsay]

Needed a specialty instrument for a Middle Eastern sound; built a full scale Irish bouzouki; now have to learn to play it.

Surely such a pure-bred instrument as the Irish bouzouki could never sound like a middle-Eastern instrument??

[Tom Haywood]

Surely such a pure-bred instrument as the Irish bouzouki could never sound like a middle-Eastern instrument??

Well, it was a compromise because I couldn't figure out a good way to hold a bowl back while standing. In an open tuning, it captures the sound pretty well. Now I have to learn the Irish sound.

[Colin Lindsay]

Well, it was a compromise because I couldn't figure out a good way to hold a bowl back while standing. In an open tuning, it captures the sound pretty well. Now I have to learn the Irish sound.

Lol yes, well I know that feeling! I had to sit to play my first bouzouki, it was a nightmare to hold straight… and these days my lute slides about all over the place especially when doing Mark Knopfler on it. A friend uses velcro stuck to the back of her bowl-back… and it appears to work. Pulls lots of fluff out of her clothes tho…

(For a good laugh the pic is from around 1982…. don’t even MENTION the wooly pullover.)

[Nick Gellie]

Well, it was a compromise because I couldn't figure out a good way to hold a bowl back while standing. In an open tuning, it captures the sound pretty well. Now I have to learn the Irish sound.

I have played my Crump bouzouki in all sorts of music. You can play Balkan and middle eastern music and it will sound authentic. Superb instrument - best bouzouki I have ever owned!

[Mike Anderson]

Lol yes, well I know that feeling! I had to sit to play my first bouzouki, it was a nightmare to hold straight… and these days my lute slides about all over the place especially when doing Mark Knopfler on it. A friend uses velcro stuck to the back of her bowl-back… and it appears to work. Pulls lots of fluff out of her clothes tho…

(For a good laugh the pic is from around 1982…. don’t even MENTION the wooly pullover.)

What, that's a great picture! Nothing to be embarrassed about there.

I'll have to review all my Planxty videos and see what Donal and Andy were doing with their bowl-back bouzoukis. I know Andy played sitting a lot, but not always.

[violmando]

I was a double bassist with 2 music degrees who knew next to nothing about mandolin, but finally bought one. Then, almost 10 years ago, the Dayton Mandolin Orchestra was trying to get up and running and I heard there was such a thing as a mandocello. I played the first couple years on a borrowed one, then got my own. I was HOOKED as soon as I heard that plectrum sound!

[brdmartin]

I grew up playing the Viola, and always enjoyed the deeper richer sound it had compared to the violin. I needed a change in instrument, but I really didn't want to do the guitar, since everyone and their mother plays the guitar. I've been playing OM for about 4 years, and LOVE it. I'm about to get a custom built instrument, which is going to make it just that much more fun.

[dulcillini]

I heard some mandola players and really liked the sound. I have not found a group setting yet for my mandola playing, but enjoy playing it just the same. Larger sound box and more mellow sound is very nice.

[Eddie Sheehy]

I had an old Greek zouk that I had a square of sandpaper taped to the back... the wooley jumper held the zouk in place - predated Velcro...

[vernob]

I started to play a CBOM when I built a zouk and have since built a cittern. Mine are no great pieces of art, but they work. The cittern sounds especially good.

[chuck3]

to the original question - I'm a bass player (upright and electric) who came way later in life to mando. But obviously the lower end of the mando family was of great interest to me. I've got a mandola and I'm shopping for a zouk, which the guitarist in my main band (who is Irish-American) would also like to try his hand at.

but thanks to all for introducing me to Planxty on this thread - wow, not sure how I missed them back in the day. Their youtube of The Blacksmith on the Late Late Show (whatever that is) is phenomenal!

[chuck3]

to the original question - I'm a bass player (upright and electric) who came way later in life to mando. But obviously the lower end of the mando family was of great interest to me. I've got a mandola and I'm shopping for a zouk, which the guitarist in my main band (who is Irish-American) would also like to try his hand at.

but thanks to all for introducing me to Planxty on this thread - wow, not sure how I missed them back in the day. Their youtube of The Blacksmith on the Late Late Show (whatever that is) is phenomenal!

referring to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z3A5Tgy47M

[Rob Zamites]

referring to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z3A5Tgy47M

That video is so inspiring to me. I got into cbom's because *everyone* played guitar, and I just didn't like to be like everyone else. I've been away for awhile, but back in it with a fever. I'm even going to sell my ukulele and mountain dulcimer, just so I have $$$ to throw at another cbom!

[JeffD]

After my very first mandolin self destructed in the back of a closed car one hot summer day, I called up Elderly Instruments (no internet in those days) and ordered my first serious (not beginner) instrument, a Flatiron 3MW mandola, you know the pancake style with a sort of herringbone binding. It was made in 1984, and I bought it new.

I played the potatoes out of that thing, tuned CGDA, sometimes capo 2. It was my main axe for a long while, because that, and an old Martin bowlback in rough shape, were my only mandolins.

I only recently sold it, to the mandola player in a little quartet I play in, and that is the best way to sell something you have loved, sell it to someone you will be playing music with for a long time, so you still see the thing being played and enjoyed, and you get to love on it a little now and then.

Now I have gone the other way, and I play a sopranino, which is a fourth above the mandolin. Which puts it CGDA, where I am comfortable, but an octave above the mandola, two octaves above the mandocello. All the trigonometry I used to do to play fiddle tunes on mandola serves me well.

Though capo 2 is not an option anymore.

[Rob Zamites]

After my very first mandolin self destructed in the back of a closed car one hot summer day, I called up Elderly Instruments (no internet in those days) and ordered my first serious (not beginner) instrument, a Flatiron 3MW mandola, you know the pancake style with a sort of herringbone binding. It was made in 1984, and I bought it new.

I played the potatoes out of that thing, tuned CGDA, sometimes capo 2. It was my main axe for a long while, because that, and an old Martin bowlback in rough shape, were my only mandolins.

I only recently sold it, to the mandola player in a little quartet I play in, and that is the best way to sell something you have loved, sell it to someone you will be playing music with for a long time, so you still see the thing being played and enjoyed, and you get to love on it a little now and then.

Now I have gone the other way, and I play a sopranino, which is a fourth above the mandolin. Which puts it CGDA, where I am comfortable, but an octave above the mandola, two octaves above the mandocello. All the trigonometry I used to do to play fiddle tunes on mandola serves me well.

Though capo 2 is not an option anymore.

{redacted due to my inability to click the link}

[Eddie Sheehy]

Well, there I was, marooned on the Island of Misfit toys when...

[kmmando]

Because of Alec Finn, and Andy Irvine too.

[kmmando]

These guys had a lot of influence, Andy Irvine and Donal Lunny.