Wesley, Seán Tyrell has an excellent cd "Cry Of A Dreamer" The photo on the cover shows him playing a mandocello that he has reduced to 4 strings! Irish singer Jimmy Crowley favors a bouzouki for accompaniment. According to a recent article in Dirty Linen magazine, he will be releasing an album of sailing songs that we use only mandolin-family instruments. I don't recall the name of that one. An artist named Chipper Thompson has a web site: www.folk-n-roll.com. I've seen him mentioned on the cittern-list. He is using octave mandolin in a rootsy American context. If you haven't figured it out by now, the taxonomy of this family of instruments is very fluid, and this man's cittern is that man's bouzouki, is this woman's octave mandolin. I am at the same crossroads you seem to be standing at, trying to narrow down the choices on an instrument, and broaden the music it's used for. Good luck, John