Why did you start playing a cbom?

[garryireland]

A question that has been floating around in my head. Judging by this site, there are alot of zouk, mandola and cittern players out there. What made you guys pick one up and decide that was what you wanted to play? For me, it was the first time i saw Andy Irvine in Dublin. I had no idea what a zouk was but went out and bought one the next week. Now i couldnt imagine not having one. Although I have been almost 2 weeks now having sold my Ozark and waiting on my Buchanan! Anyways, stories/comments welcome. And what do you play????

[Mandobart]

My love for mandola, OM and mandocello hasn't dimmed my ardor for mandolin; I still play it as well. For me it's the lower, deeper, richer sound and greater sustain that drew me to the lower register. The OM and mandocello are better suited for vocal accompaniment as well. I have to admit I also like the unique-ness factor; many people have never even heard of an OM or 'cello until they hear me play one. I do my best to give a good first impression.

[Mike Anderson]

For me it was Andy Irvine first and foremost, just Planxty at first, then I started discovering his other projects. And because of Planxty, Donal Lunny, which led me to investigate Bothy Band. This was all mid-late '80s, then as the '90s began I first heard Michael Holmes with Dervish, and Ciaran Curran with Altan, and by then I was pretty well hooked on the idea of it being something I had to try. Till that point I was a singer, and had played percussion in many styles of music and settled on bodhran, but loved the idea of singing and accompanying myself on bouzouki.

In the late '90s I met a guy from a Newfoundland outport, Lorne Warr, and we started playing together. He plays great guitar and mandolin and sings baritone, and I'm a tenor, so we started working out arrangements of songs we loved from Newfoundland, Ireland, and Scotland with lots of vocal harmonies, but I still had no CBOM as the only luthiers I had heard of were in the UK and Ireland, no local dealers, and out of my budget anyway.

Eventually we hooked up with various fiddle players and a terrific simple-system flute and tin whistle player, we were getting plenty of gigs so things were moving along, but I wasn't satisfied just playing bodhran and snare drum and singing. Can't remember how, but eventually I discovered Lark in the Morning in Seattle, and Lorne and I made a trip down to check out their "Hecho en Mexico" cittern at $300 US. That was a fun day - there was a Fylde mandola in the shop, which Lorne played beautifully to the amazement of the other customers. Very memorable, that Fylde. I bought the cittern and brought it back to Vancouver, had a piezo pickup put in, and started working out accompaniment in GDADG tuning, very basic strumming stuff. I think I just printed out Han Speek's GDAD chord chart, the only resource I could find

That instrument is now in the hands of a good friend and former bass player in the band, a little the worse for wear in the much drier climate of Alberta but still played regularly. He's in the market for a new cittern in the near term though, so I pass on what I learn here at the Cafe.

I had a long hiatus from playing until last year, just busy working my butt off, getting married, buying a house, and raising our boy, but got the bug again irresistibly and had to have a new bodhran and bouzouki ASAP (and damned if they didn't come up with an entirely new way of playing bodhran since I stopped - you bodhranistas know what I mean). I bought a really nice Trinity College TC-375 from a member here and am getting my head around the idea of counter-melody accompaniment and eventually melody playing. Won't be truly satisfied until I have a luthier-built instrument, but not in the budget at the moment. Am also going to take possession of my grandfather's 1966 Suzuki bowl-back mando shortly (which I posted about in 2012) and will try my hand at that. Meanwhile Lorne was nominated for an East Coast Music Award this year and moved back to Newfoundland. Makes me wonder what might have happened with me had I stuck with the band!

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

[Bertram Henze]

Factor #1:
I started out on the mandolin, some 30 years ago, playing Irish music. But then I saw/heard the tenor banjo, which I thought was way cooler (yeah, I know what you're going to say...). I played the TB for years, and then I was at that gig of a Scottish band where we used to have our sessions, and after the gig the band members let us try their instruments; one I picked up was a dark wooden zouk that said "Fylde" on the headstock - I couldn't really play it because of the weird tuning, but I was so in love with the sound. This factor did not become effective immediately - years later, when my daughter had grown up so I could attend sessions again, it worked as a guideline for factor#2...

Factor#2:
In an Irish session, you typically don't know all the tunes they are playing, so you want to have something else to do during the unknown tunes, like chord accompaniment. Neither mandolin nor TB are really cut out for that, but the OM is.

Both factors directly led to my playing a Fylde OM today.

[foldedpath]

I arrived at an interest in Irish and Scottish traditional music relatively late in my musical life. So I wasn't all that aware of the early history of the bouzouki in this music from players like Donal Lunny, Andy Irvine, Alec Finn, etc.

I never thought much about longer-scale mandolin family instruments until I started playing mandolin around 7 years ago. By that time, my ears were starting to perk up when I heard what Ale Möller was doing with accompaniment and unison melody on "Fully Rigged" and "Beyond the Stacks" with fiddler Aly Bain, and also the way Simon Mayor was multi-tracking his mandolin with mandocello and mandola accompaniment. To the extent I have any musical influences here, I guess they're fairly recent.

When I started gigging with the mandolin in a few local trios and duos, I began to think that adding a longer-scale instrument might open up some new band arrangement possibilities. So when a used Weber OM came up for sale at a very good price on Ebay, I jumped on it. I had wanted an archtop anyway, because my ears were drawn to that sound in the longer-scale instruments I'd heard on recordings. This particular Weber was also an F-style... totally outrageous-looking and difficult to justify on any basis, other than it looks very cool. It's hard to miss as a stage instrument.

So the Weber arrived, and I was thrilled with it. But I have to admit that incorporating it into band arrangements hasn't worked out quite like I thought it might, mostly because I'm usually the one playing the lead melody line alongside a guitar player doing backup. The OM and guitar occupy a similar pitch and timbre, so it's difficult to hear the OM's melody line unless a lot of work is put into an arrangement that allows that space. Working an OM into a band is much easier when it's mainly used for accompaniment under a higher pitched instrument like mandolin or fiddle, as in those albums that started me down this track in the first place.

I haven't given up on trying to use it on gigs, it's still a work in progress. Slower tunes like slow reels and airs, with the OM capo'd up while the guitar stays un-capo'd has some potential. Meanwhile, I play the OM frequently at home as a solo instrument, and I enjoy that very much. I've also taken it to a few sessions as a backing instrument, although most of the time I bring the mandolin for melody.

[Steve L]

It was Planxty, De Danann, Silly Wizard et al as well as Gerald Trimble for me back in the late 70s,early 80s. I had a Flatiron bouzouki for many years before I ever owned a mandolin.

[NotMelloCello]

I have no interest in Irish folk tunes, Bach cello suites, bluegrass, or any trad mandocello music. But during my many years as a stringed instrument repairman at a large music store (and then in my home shop), I fell in love with the sound of mandolin. It had such a sweet, lyrical tone! But the frets were too close together, and my fingers were too fat for the string spacing - so I never pursued it further.

Decades later, my arthritis was making playing guitar too difficult, although I could still play bass where there was plenty of room. 6 notes was just too hard for me! Then somehow the mandocello floated into my consciousness... and I realized that chords were still available to me. I bought a cheap Washburn electric, and converted it over to a mandocello. Instantly - I felt at home on it! I could handle the scale length and the string spacing - and it had a lovely baritone voice. I was smitten. I wish I had made the jump so many decades ago.

Now I am relearning all those jazz and pop tunes I love on the mandocello. I can hardly wait to find a nice acoustic mandocello to play, or a nice archtop jazz box to convert. If my playing skills improve enough, maybe you'll be seeing me on YouTube.... Until then, back to woodshedding - I have scales and fingerings to learn.

[Mike Crocker]

Several years of hearing folks play them at a celtic music festival, and the realization that I could play my mandolin tunes on one, and accompany songs much like I do with guitar. Frankly, I haven't used it much live, but there's always tomorrow.

[garryireland]

For me it was Andy Irvine first and foremost, just Planxty at first, then I started discovering his other projects. And because of Planxty, Donal Lunny, which led me to investigate Bothy Band. This was all mid-late '80s, then as the '90s began I first heard Michael Holmes with Dervish, and Ciaran Curran with Altan, and by then I was pretty well hooked on the idea of it being something I had to try. Till that point I was a singer, and had played percussion in many styles of music and settled on bodhran, but loved the idea of singing and accompanying myself on bouzouki.

In the late '90s I met a guy from a Newfoundland outport, Lorne Warr, and we started playing together. He plays great guitar and mandolin and sings baritone, and I'm a tenor, so we started working out arrangements of songs we loved from Newfoundland, Ireland, and Scotland with lots of vocal harmonies, but I still had no CBOM as the only luthiers I had heard of were in the UK and Ireland, no local dealers, and out of my budget anyway.

Eventually we hooked up with various fiddle players and a terrific simple-system flute and tin whistle player, we were getting plenty of gigs so things were moving along, but I wasn't satisfied just playing bodhran and snare drum and singing. Can't remember how, but eventually I discovered Lark in the Morning in Seattle, and Lorne and I made a trip down to check out their "Hecho en Mexico" cittern at $300 US. That was a fun day - there was a Fylde mandola in the shop, which Lorne played beautifully to the amazement of the other customers. Very memorable, that Fylde. I bought the cittern and brought it back to Vancouver, had a piezo pickup put in, and started working out accompaniment in GDADG tuning, very basic strumming stuff. I think I just printed out Han Speek's GDAD chord chart, the only resource I could find

That instrument is now in the hands of a good friend and former bass player in the band, a little the worse for wear in the much drier climate of Alberta but still played regularly. He's in the market for a new cittern in the near term though, so I pass on what I learn here at the Cafe.

I had a long hiatus from playing until last year, just busy working my butt off, getting married, buying a house, and raising our boy, but got the bug again irresistibly and had to have a new bodhran and bouzouki ASAP (and damned if they didn't come up with an entirely new way of playing bodhran since I stopped - you bodhranistas know what I mean). I bought a really nice Trinity College TC-375 from a member here and am getting my head around the idea of counter-melody accompaniment and eventually melody playing. Won't be truly satisfied until I have a luthier-built instrument, but not in the budget at the moment. Am also going to take possession of my grandfather's 1966 Suzuki bowl-back mando shortly (which I posted about in 2012) and will try my hand at that. Meanwhile Lorne was nominated for an East Coast Music Award this year and moved back to Newfoundland. Makes me wonder what might have happened with me had I stuck with the band!

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

quite a story there Mike!

[bratsche]

As soon as I learned of the existence of a mandola, I knew I had to have one (now I have "a few" more than that!) It was precisely because of Bach cello sonatas and violin partitas that I wanted a mandola - I had studied many of those pieces already, and was always enthralled by hearing them on a plucked instrument, usually guitar. But I wasn't about to learn a new alien-tuned instrument so late in life, and thought I would only be able to appreciate plucked Bach by listening to recordings, until I acquired my first mandola. And the rest is history. My repertoire of Bach is becoming much larger now on mandola than it ever was on viola and/or violin!

bratsche

[Mike Anderson]

quite a story there Mike!

Ah well, I write for a living so ought to be able to do something readable...BTW I should mention my bodhran is by Christian Hedwitschak if anyone's interested, and my tippers too. He's a gent, great to deal with, fantastic products and always includes some good German candies with every shipment.

[Clement Barrera-Ng]

Though I don't play a CBOM anymore, I started off on this mandolin journey first and foremost by playing bouzouki and citterns. For me, it was after listening to Planxty's first album that got me interested.

[Colin Lindsay]

I didn’t want to be just another guitar player….

[garryireland]

I didn’t want to be just another guitar player….

people always assume i play guitar ( which i can but i dont tell them). ive just got a waldzither, and the new zouk coming tomorrow, long neck beast of a 5 string banjo, low whistle, harmonica, bodhran, it goes on and on. i like to stand out !

[Lord of the Badgers]

i wanted another instrument in the same(ish if you use GDAD of course) of tuning as mandolin. I was also drawn to the idea of having octaved pairs (my personal thing). I too get frustrated with the sheer masses of acoustic guitar players out there.
I actually play up the neck far more on my zouk than on my mandolin. When I bought it I almost bought a Fylde Cittern, but I know I made a better choice for me on the day.

But ultimately, it was initially just Acquisition Syndrome - but in this case it was spot on judgement wise

[allenhopkins]

Got into a Celtic band with a Scottish fiddler in 1985, thought that the mandolin I was playing then was too much like the fiddle in terms of register and melody role, bought a Flatiron 3K OM which I still own, played a bit of alto/tenor-plus-chords on a Washburn bowl-back mandola which I bought, looked for something sturdier and more modern, and lucked into a Sobell short-scale OM which I restrung as a mandola. All of this in the 1985-88 range.

Since then I've added a bunch more CBOM's, just because I like different instruments with different sounds. Still play the Sobell and the Flatiron in my very-part-time Celtic band Innisfree, and both mandolin and mandola in a Jewish-plus-originals trio Love & Knishes.

[Mike Anderson]

Love & Knishes.

GREAT name!

[Marcus CA]

Judging by this site, there are alot of zouk, mandola and cittern players out there. What made you guys pick one up and decide that was what you wanted to play?

The first three notes of "Gator Strut" made me want to learn mandocello. I love that beast of an instrument! I also have a cittern, but it has a flat top and back. So, I use it when I want a prettier sound (like for playing fiddle tunes), but I use my carved top-and-back mandocello when I want power in the sound.

[Mandobart]

I didn’t want to be just another guitar player….

I totally agree. I didn't even start mandolin family instruments until about 5 years ago. Since then I have enjoyed so many musical opportunities, because I do something a little different from the mass of singer/songwriters/pickers out there. Had I not picked up mandolin (and 'dola, OM and 'cello) I would just be another one of millions of mildly competent guitar players. Now I'm one of dozens of mandocello players, possibly competent.

[jmp]

Like others I came to OM from guitar. It was a very natural transition. I like the range, tone, and sustain and versatility of OM better than soprano mandolin. I can always play above the 12th fret if I need a mandolin sound. I had thought about getting a mando for many years, but a friend let me borrow her OM and I couldn't put it down. I ended up getting my own a month later and have never looked back. The guitar doesn't get played as much anymore.

[Paul Kotapish]

Heard Dave Richardson playing his Sobell with Boys of the Lough in '76 and then heard Andy Irvine, Johnny Moynihan, and Donal Lunny in various bands--Planxty, Sweeney's Men, Celtic Folkweave/Bothy Band--and had to have one.

There were virtually none to be had in the U.S. back then, but I wrote to Rich Westerman in '77 or so and he agreed to build me a koa/cedar OM. I played the heck out of it with various folk/Irish bands in Oregon and Seattle, and later toured and recorded a bunch of things with Kevin Burke and Open House with it, too. It changed hands among players in the NW about four times over the years, had pickguards added and removed and various hardware replaced. I bought it back from Clyde Curley a decade or so back and got it fixed it up with a new fingerboard, tailpiece, etc., and it still plays and sounds great. Wish I had more time to play the dang thing.

[jdsobol]

I was a guitar player. Started with classical and for a while was a standard tuning snob--believed that if you couldn't play it in standard it was because you just couldn't figure it out. Then one day in '85 I stopped in a pawnshop in Greensboro NC and found a 1913 blacktop Gibson H-2 mandola. It had a wide open heel crack that scared the pawnbroker into giving it to me for $50. Had the crack repaired very nicely and that thing played perfectly. Because I had no reason to feel pride over my pedigreed mandolin chops, and was too lazy to learn all the chord shapes in fifths, I tuned it C-G-C-G. That was my gateway drug to open tunings in mando-family instruments. I was just going into doing a lot of school gigs just then, and the H-2 was a huge crowd-pleaser. You could wail away on old-time and Irish tunes all by yourself and keep a gymnasium full of middle schoolers stomping and clapping the whole time. The sonority was huge, and hugely pleasurable.

A couple of years later I saw my first Sobell 10-string, and it seemed to have everything the Gibson did and then some. In those days you could pick up a used Sobell for around $1000. Alas, no more in this world. But I got one from Elderly in 1990 and that was that.

[scifi]

I once listened to a Arabian Zither and thought that I would like to get a similar sound on my steelstring guitar. I am actually a guitar player. Then I found by chance a used Octave Mandolin by Oakwood and one thing led to the other :-)

[Carl Robin]

I received my mandola in the mail yesterday. I decided to get it after playing the mandolin for a few years, and learning Irish music. I was curious about how it would sound, and wanted to learn to stretch my fingering out on a bigger instrument. The next step will be, eventually, an octave mandolin. To tell the truth, I was surprised by it'size--16 1/2" string length, and when I started tuning it, eventually realized CGDA was the right way to go. The first tune I played was The Reel of Mullinavat. The mandolin is still number one, but I think the mandola is going to be fun to play, especially when it has strap buttons, and a strap.

[acousticphd]

When I was pretty new to the mandolin, I started hearing some mandola or OM for the first time by a few of the musicians I was listening (Tom Rozum, Tim O'Brien, Peter Ostrouschko). I've had and played a mandola for ~a dozen years, and use it a ton in old-time and celtic/irish settings. My OM experience so far is limited to some experimenting with tenor guitars and a tenor-to-OM conversion, but I hope to own a quality 8- or 10-string OM or bouzouki someday.

To those who mentioned Andy Irvine, through the miracle of Youtube I've only recently been discovering early Planxty, Bothy Band, and early (and later) Andy Irvine/Paul Brady stuff, which I can't get enough of lately.