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Thread: 17 fret Irish Tenor Banjo vs mandolin

  1. #1
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    Default 17 fret Irish Tenor Banjo vs mandolin

    I read that its tuned the same, G D A E but is it an octive lower than the mandolin or just the same?
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  2. #2

    Default Re: 17 fret Irish Tenor Banjo vs mandolin

    An octave lower is correct.

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    🎶 Play Pretty 🎶 Greg Connor's Avatar
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    Default Re: 17 fret Irish Tenor Banjo vs mandolin

    I tune my Irish Tenor Banjo C G D A. Irish Tenor is a fun instrument.

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    Registered User Jill McAuley's Avatar
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    Default Re: 17 fret Irish Tenor Banjo vs mandolin

    Just a note that there is nothing "Irish" about a 17 fret tenor banjo - it's just a marketing term in use in the States. The bulk of players in Ireland actually use 19 fret tenor banjos. While referring to 17 fret tenors as such is basically harmless, it does contribute to the mythology that you can "only" play irish trad music on a short scale tenor banjo, and that's patently not true.
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    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: 17 fret Irish Tenor Banjo vs mandolin

    Yeah, we get the "Irish tenor banjo" as well as the "Irish bouzouki." Just means that people play Celtic music on these instruments. There's also the "Irish harp" for smaller diatonic wire-strung instruments.

    I can understand the "Irish pipes," because the uilleann pipes are pretty much an Irish instrument, though related to other forms of bellows-activated bagpipes. I'd indict the Irish-music community for "musical imperialism," claiming all these instruments as their own. Don't wanta get a shillelagh across my shins, however.
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    Default Re: 17 fret Irish Tenor Banjo vs mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by allenhopkins View Post
    Yeah, we get the "Irish tenor banjo" as well as the "Irish bouzouki." Just means that people play Celtic music on these instruments. There's also the "Irish harp" for smaller diatonic wire-strung instruments.

    I can understand the "Irish pipes," because the uilleann pipes are pretty much an Irish instrument, though related to other forms of bellows-activated bagpipes. I'd indict the Irish-music community for "musical imperialism," claiming all these instruments as their own. Don't wanta get a shillelagh across my shins, however.
    More like manufacturers claiming that for marketing purposes. In the Irish music world they're just banjos and bouzoukis. I've never heard an Irish player put "Irish" in front of their banjo or bouzouki. The Uilleann (actually, it's "Union" pipes, Uilleann is a modern label) pipes are definitely an Irish instrument as no others have regulators and are fully chromatic, or can be overblown and play in the 2nd octave (minus Galician pipes etc. that can hit a few notes higher). Plus they weren't adapted from another type of music as all other instruments in the Irish tradition are. They're related to other bellows-driven pipes in the same way that both mandolin and guitar use a plectrum. Other than that, there's nothing else that really comes close.

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    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: 17 fret Irish Tenor Banjo vs mandolin

    Definitions.net's explanation of the term "uilleann":

    The uilleann pipes or //; Irish: are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. Their current name, earlier known in English as "union pipes", is a part translation of the Irish-language term píobaí uilleann, from their method of inflation.There is no historical record of the name or use of the term 'uilleann pipes' before the nineteenth century. It was an invention of Grattan Flood and the name stuck. People mistook the term 'union' to refer to the 1800 Act of Union, this is incorrect as Breandán Breathnach points out that a poem published in 1796 uses the term 'union'.

    Most web sources relate "uilleann" to the Irish word for "elbow," referring to the means of inflating the bellows. Grattan Flood published A History of Irish Music in 1913; it's been reprinted several times, most recent apparently 2008.

    I think I'm not far off base in saying that different forms of "pipes" are related to each other a bit more closely than the mandolin/guiter "plectrum" example cited, though. Mandolin and guitar are more closely akin than the (somewhat minor) fact that both are picked. They have strings, necks, soundboxes, tuners, etc. Pipes have chanters, drones, means of air intake and compression, pitch-altering devices -- whether keys, spaced and fingered holes, or other. (Can't think of what "other" could be, though.)

    Uilleann pipes -- to use the current vernacular -- are more mechanically complex than some other European pipes, and are also, as noted above, chromatic while many other forms of pipes are diatonic. (Scottish bagpipes play in B flat, e.g.) Don't think that makes them unrelated.

    I concur that hanging the "Irish" prefix on tenor banjos, bouzoukis, harps etc. is basically to reach the Celtic-music market, not a practice of actual Irish musicians. My "musical imperialism" quip wasn't meant to impute any such motives or attitudes to the musicians themselves.
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    Default Re: 17 fret Irish Tenor Banjo vs mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by allenhopkins View Post
    Definitions.net's explanation of the term "uilleann":

    The uilleann pipes or //; Irish: are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. Their current name, earlier known in English as "union pipes", is a part translation of the Irish-language term píobaí uilleann, from their method of inflation.There is no historical record of the name or use of the term 'uilleann pipes' before the nineteenth century. It was an invention of Grattan Flood and the name stuck. People mistook the term 'union' to refer to the 1800 Act of Union, this is incorrect as Breandán Breathnach points out that a poem published in 1796 uses the term 'union'.

    Most web sources relate "uilleann" to the Irish word for "elbow," referring to the means of inflating the bellows. Grattan Flood published A History of Irish Music in 1913; it's been reprinted several times, most recent apparently 2008.

    I think I'm not far off base in saying that different forms of "pipes" are related to each other a bit more closely than the mandolin/guiter "plectrum" example cited, though. Mandolin and guitar are more closely akin than the (somewhat minor) fact that both are picked. They have strings, necks, soundboxes, tuners, etc. Pipes have chanters, drones, means of air intake and compression, pitch-altering devices -- whether keys, spaced and fingered holes, or other. (Can't think of what "other" could be, though.)

    Uilleann pipes -- to use the current vernacular -- are more mechanically complex than some other European pipes, and are also, as noted above, chromatic while many other forms of pipes are diatonic. (Scottish bagpipes play in B flat, e.g.) Don't think that makes them unrelated.

    I concur that hanging the "Irish" prefix on tenor banjos, bouzoukis, harps etc. is basically to reach the Celtic-music market, not a practice of actual Irish musicians. My "musical imperialism" quip wasn't meant to impute any such motives or attitudes to the musicians themselves.
    I understood what you meant and wasn't trying to be too pedantic, just pointing the layer of evolution that made those pipes distinctly Irish vs some of their distant cousins. Most other pipers are probably thankful NOT to have to mess about with UP reeds as well. That extra level of complexity you mention makes UP reed upkeep almost a black art! The other attributed origin of "union" is that it came when the instrument achieved it's full state, which happened to be right around The Act of Union incidentally, with the addition of tenor, baritone, and bass regulators (as well as a fourth drone in some cases), for a "union" of all. That's a bit of an esoteric interpretation, but well regarded within the piping world.

    I do like the musical imperialism term! I might have to steal that for the right moment in a Bluegrass discussion. It compliments "Ain't no part of nothin'"

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    Default Re: 17 fret Irish Tenor Banjo vs mandolin

    ITB for 'short' ..

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