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Thread: Irish mandocello from Garry O'Briain

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    Registered User Mike Anderson's Avatar
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    Default Irish mandocello from Garry O'Briain

    Ever since I watched the "Ceird an Cheoil: Bouzouki" video, I've wanted to find out more about Garry O'Briain, the sole Irish trad mandocello player I know of, who was featured in part of the film.

    Today I finally got off my butt and did something about it, found some fantastic videos and bought an album from iTunes. The album is "Light And Shade" by Skylark, and I highly recommend it. Garry is a great and sensitive player. The album's also available at Amazon and Claddagh.

    I also found a video of the full album (off-catalog) "Aengus" with Garry on mandocello from 1978:



    And here are a couple more videos with Garry. You can find plenty more on Youtube if you search "Garry O' Briain mandocello." Really happy to hear this instrument in this context, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.



    Last edited by Mike Anderson; Jul-12-2015 at 10:43pm.
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    Unfamous String Buster Beanzy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Irish mandocello from Garry O'Briain

    That's great stuff.
    One more for the list of players;
    Fergus Feely originally from Dundalk is another great advocate of the mandoloncello which he plays with the Bully Wee Band.

    http://youtu.be/fMFxlnN_yBU
    http://youtu.be/7XwKeMQwKU0 ( about 7:30 onwards)
    I would have embedded the links but my iPad browser just quits if I hit that button so I don't embed them anymore unless I'm on the PC.
    Eoin



    "Forget that anyone is listening to you and always listen to yourself" - Fryderyk Chopin

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    Registered User Martin Jonas's Avatar
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    Default Re: Irish mandocello from Garry O'Briain

    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Anderson View Post
    Ever since I watched the "Ceird an Cheoil: Bouzouki" video, I've wanted to find out more about Garry O'Briain, the sole Irish trad mandocello player I know of, who was featured in part of the film.
    Garry's segment in that video is also available on the BBC iPlayer at:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00b2ctx

    [Not sure if this will work outside the UK.]

    It's not clear from that how he tunes his mandocello. In the BBC video it looks like octave stringing and I suspect he doesn't have a low C -- those strings are not thick enough. In the UK at least there is a bit of a trend recently for large-bodied instruments in GDAD or similar to be called "mandocello" (e.g. by Steve Knightley), and I don't know if that's also true in Ireland. Those instruments may well be built as true mandocellos, but in that tuning they're really large Irish bouzoukis and are played like that.

    Martin

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    Registered User Mike Anderson's Avatar
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    Default Re: Irish mandocello from Garry O'Briain

    Thanks Beanzy and Martin! I'd heard of Bully Wee but knew nothing about them, and this inspired me to look them up. Found a few pics of Steve Knightley - is that an Oddy he's playing?

    cheers,
    Mike.
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    Registered User foldedpath's Avatar
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    Default Re: Irish mandocello from Garry O'Briain

    Quote Originally Posted by Martin Jonas View Post
    Garry's segment in that video is also available on the BBC iPlayer at:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00b2ctx

    [Not sure if this will work outside the UK.]

    It's not clear from that how he tunes his mandocello. In the BBC video it looks like octave stringing and I suspect he doesn't have a low C -- those strings are not thick enough. In the UK at least there is a bit of a trend recently for large-bodied instruments in GDAD or similar to be called "mandocello" (e.g. by Steve Knightley), and I don't know if that's also true in Ireland. Those instruments may well be built as true mandocellos, but in that tuning they're really large Irish bouzoukis and are played like that.
    Thanks for that info. I was scratching my head, wondering what the advantage of playing trad in CGDA would be... having tried it on mandola for a while and given up on it, at least in that tuning. Capo at the second fret is DAEB, a better fit for the music. But I finally just went back to an octave mandolin (at least what we call 'em on this side of the pond) in GDAE.

    Garry looks like he's playing without a capo in that one clip, so maybe he's in GDAE (or GDAD), with lighter strings than you'd normally use on a 'cello scale instrument?

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    Registered User Martin Jonas's Avatar
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    Default Re: Irish mandocello from Garry O'Briain

    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Anderson View Post
    Thanks Beanzy and Martin! I'd heard of Bully Wee but knew nothing about them, and this inspired me to look them up. Found a few pics of Steve Knightley - is that an Oddy he's playing?
    Yes, Steve Knightley plays a David Oddy mandocello, but tunes it GDAD. Tom Bliss also plays an Oddy mandocello, but tunes it ADGC. Go figure.

    Loads of Steve Knightley mandocello clips on Youtube -- look for "Show of Hands":







    Martin

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    Registered User zoukboy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Irish mandocello from Garry O'Briain

    Quote Originally Posted by Martin Jonas View Post
    Garry's segment in that video is also available on the BBC iPlayer at:

    [snip]

    It's not clear from that how he tunes his mandocello. In the BBC video it looks like octave stringing and I suspect he doesn't have a low C -- those strings are not thick enough. In the UK at least there is a bit of a trend recently for large-bodied instruments in GDAD or similar to be called "mandocello" (e.g. by Steve Knightley), and I don't know if that's also true in Ireland. Those instruments may well be built as true mandocellos, but in that tuning they're really large Irish bouzoukis and are played like that.

    Martin
    Garry tunes his mandocellos GDAD. I visited him in his shop on my first trip to Ireland in 1990. His design is based on the Neapolitan style bowl back mandocelli but he tunes and plays it like a bouzouki.

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