My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?

Subject: My pic. Dig what he's holding!
From: Downeast Bob
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 12:38 PM

Just posted a pic of myself to the member photo gallery. I'm curious to see how many can correctly identify the 5-string thingy in the pic and who made it.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Downeast Bob
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 12:40 PM

Uh.. It might help if you could see it. Click here.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Kim C
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 12:42 PM

well, since the whole thing doesn't show in the picture...... ;) It's shaped like a mandola or something but if it's only got five strings I don't reckon that's right...

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: SINSULL
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 12:46 PM

Or just go into Mudcat Resources, select photos, and scroll down to Downeast Bob. Looks like a cross between a mandolin, a five string banjo, and a guitar. Love the beard and twinkle in you eye.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: death by whisky
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 12:46 PM

It's a bizzare 19th Century 5 string thingy.A strange hybrid type gizmo.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: JedMarum
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 12:56 PM

a cleverly designed prop from wierd instrument photo studio?? jes kiddin

don't know, but it looks like fun! What is it??

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 12:56 PM

Great photo!. I have to admit defeat with the name of the instrument. It looks like a mandola body with a 5-string banjo type neck.

Jo

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 12:57 PM

Nice picture, but sheesh! I went to Lark in the Morning's site and the list is endless of what it possibly could be, so hopefully someone with more knowledge will recognise it and get us out of the blue! Looks pretty interesting....

katlaughing

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Mbo
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 01:01 PM

It's a banjolin.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: MMario
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 01:02 PM

obviously it is a five string banjolin!

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: JedMarum
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 01:03 PM

banjolin?? Is she Banjo Bonnie's sister?

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: death by whisky
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 01:14 PM

A banjolin has a banjo type body,but smaller,double strung like a mandolin.I reckon its a mandjo

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 01:16 PM

A banjolin is another name for a mandolin-banjo and has 8 strings. It is a banjo bodied instrument with mandolin tuning and is similar in size to a ukele-banjo. I own one and love it - great fun instrument.

Jon

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Metchosin
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 01:17 PM

Looks a bit like a banjax? or banjacks that one of the fellows from Shooglenifty played when I saw them a couple of weeks ago. The body of the instrument was round though.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Downeast Bob
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 01:42 PM

Okay, it's a five-string banjo neck on a mandolin body, invented in the 1880s by a NY Luthier. He called it a banjo mandolin or a mandolin banjo (I forget which) but these days, they seemed be named after the luthier himself. I'm sure at least one or two banjo pickers here will know his name.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Dee45
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 01:44 PM

It's a "mandoline-banjo" built by August Pollmann of New York.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: JedMarum
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 01:48 PM

sounds cool. I think I need one!

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Metchosin
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 01:53 PM

I should have known that, my Uncle plays a banjo mandolin, Duh!!! but that would have been too easy.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Sorcha
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 01:55 PM

Tuned I would guess, e A D G C ? Like a 5 string violin with a viola C string? If so, I neeeeeeeed one.......

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: death by whisky
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 01:58 PM

Whats peoples opinions on hybrid instruments?I've tried a couple of six string banjos,,but they just sound awful.What does your mandybanjy sound like/play like?

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 02:01 PM

No offense here Bob, but I classify all those things as "Bastardaharps." Every once in awhile, for reasons unclear to me, folks seem to get a wild hair up their ass and whip together some assorted parts in the hope of creating a new and wonderful sound and instrument. Mostly they drop off the face of the earth with a few loyal follwers tagging along like the marxolin or they actually make it, like the autoharp. Harp is a popular word since it associates with a pretty sound, even though the instrument does not fit the harp definition......an autoharp is a zither, not a harp.

Personally, I'm thinking of attaching a set of drone pipes to an accordion with French Horn bells on the end of each pipe with strung banjo pots atop the bells. I'm thinking that Flatulharp would be a great name.......

Spaw

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: GutBucketeer
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 02:02 PM

I've seen/heard a Mountain Dulcimer with a banjo type head. It sounded really neat, and was loud!

JAB

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Downeast Bob
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 02:21 PM

Rawhide is right. He even spelled the name of the maker correctly and corrected my misspelling of "mandoline-banjo." It is tuned and played exactly like a five string banjo. I usually use the same tunings I use on the banjo.

Fie on Spaw for his dislike of bastardized instruments. I like this little sucker because I'm not very accomplished on guitar and sometimes I want a mellower, deeper tone than I can get on any of my other banjos.

I can even play blues on it. One of the nicest compliments I've ever had was when a listener said, "Reminds me of Robert Johnson on an old National steel guitar." That's overstating it, but it can achieve a funky, old-time blues sound.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Metchosin
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 02:29 PM

Are you sure its a banjo mandolin?

Uncle Jack's has eight strings and a banjo body with an open back and skin top. He purchased it from a catalogue over fifty years ago and that is what they called it then.

Rawhide, if uncle Jack's instrument is not the same as Bob's, what is my uncle's instrument known as?

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Metchosin
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 02:32 PM

aha, cross post, so yours, Bob, is the mandoline-banjo....does that make Uncle Jack's the banjo mandolin then?

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 02:36 PM

There were a whole bunch of people selling hybrid instruments at that time, and they kept pinching each other's names for them.  Farris of Connecticut patented a banjolin (4-stringed) in 1885, which was tuned in fifths and came in several sizes:  picture here.  Of course "banjolin" (also Banjo Mandolin, Mandolin Banjo and Mandobanjo) subsequently became firmly attached to the mandolin neck/banjo body type; I still have my Granddad's from the late 1930s. I've occasionally seen instruments like Downeast Bob's, though; Shirley Collins used to play one back in the '60s, but irritatingly, I can't remember what she called it.  Most people who have them over here (UK) have had them made specially, and seem to think they're unique, so (confusingly) call them whatever they think most appropriate.  I've seen a picture,  here,   of a bowed zither made by the Marxochime Colony in New Troy, Michigan, and called a banjolin, but that's frankly just eccentric.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Naemanson
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 02:38 PM

To death by whiskey: I play a six string banjo, kinda, and you are right it doesn't sound all that great but that's because mine is a cheaply made instrument and wasn't set up properly.

Check out Harvey Reid's CD titled "Artistry of the Six String Banjo". He plays a Deering Six and Deering's twelve string banjo's and they sound great! Good album too!

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 02:57 PM

The Ukelin you refer to Malcolm is eccentric .... and we have a 'Catter who just acquired one....found that smae site for him. IF you check around we ahve folks with a lot of odd stuff around here.

And Bob.....I have a load of bookmarked "Bastardaharp" sites.....love the weird stuff!!!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 03:04 PM

Got some pretty odd stuff myself!  Sadly, no hybrid bowed zither, but I keep checking the junkshops...

Malcolm

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 03:41 PM

It's a mandinka. No..it's a mandolinka. No...it's a melliflutonium. No...it's a tunegainer. Ummmm....

I give up. But it's a GRRRREAT picture! Nice to see ya, Downeast Bob.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: death by whisky
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 03:44 PM

To Naemanson.I'll try and find that.Somebody somewhere had to get it right.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: MandolinPaul
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 03:58 PM

Thank God. The title of this thread scared me a little.

Paul.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 04:01 PM

The Toronto music store "Songbird" had a Pohlmann in a few months ago at about 300 (US). If I'd been able to sneak it past Heather I would have. Lovely sound, very quiet and one hell of a conversation starter.

Rick

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 04:07 PM

Allan C., just before the "Great Mudcat Adventure" acquired a Ukelin/hybrid bowed zither gizmo. He got it at a hunk shop for 50 bucks or thereabouts as I recall. And I believe Duane D. has a Marxolin.

Spaw....Can't afford ANY conversation starters!

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Downeast Bob
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 05:12 PM

As of today, I'm gonna stop calling it an "August Pollman" and call it a Bastardaharp.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 05:30 PM

Shame on you Bob! Surely it deserves a more personal name that although I must admit only one of mine has that honour - my banjolin is "The baby" or sometimes "My baby".

Jon

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: GUEST,Joerg
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 09:36 PM

I think I already mentioned that I as a guitar player also once tried a six string banjo. It wasn't manufactured well, very difficult and hard to play. But it still was some great new experience: Because of its completely different sound pickings that sounded good on the guitar didn't work at all on that banjo, and vice versa. I didn't know before that there are things you can do with one instrument but you can't with a different one just because of the different sound and no other reason. And - when accompanied by a guitar - the result was kind of better than what I could have done with only a guitar played by myself.

So I don't object too much to experiments like banjo mandolins etc. Think of the saxophone: also some kind of bastardaharp, a clarinet mouthpiece fitted to a brass instrument. But what success!

Joerg

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 09:40 PM

Actually Joerg, if you want a kick, take a trombone mouthpiece and a little duct tape and stick it in an alto..........completely different........not great, but it is different.

Spaw

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 09:49 PM

I've met Allan C's ukelin, and that is one strange instrument. Actually, the photie reminded me a little of Allan - he also has a great twinkle and a great beard... Sinsull said it right the first time!

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Downeast Bob
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 09:51 PM

Come to think of it, the banjo itself is a kind of bastardaharp -- a cross between the African banjar or banza and a European style drum head. (a line from Nelson Algren's Walk on the Wild Side just surfaced in me brain: "Miscegination and pot theft") And the original bellied mandolin was the bastard child of a violin mated with a small lute.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 10:22 PM

Ya' know, I can't remember who it was around here, but someone a good while back was trying to rig up a twelve string neck on a banjo pot, but I'll be damned if I can remember who it was.

BTW Bob......You're new and this conversation forces me to tell you that the "Icon" instrument of the 'Cat is not that simpleass catfish in the banjo, but the tiple. Read all about how that happened in THE INFAMOUS TIPLE THREAD.

Spaw

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Naemanson
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 10:50 PM

Spaw, Deering makes a 12 string banjo! I want one! Right after I achieve a hammered dulcimer, mountain dulcimer, and good 12 string guitar. Also whirled peas and weight loss!

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 10:59 PM

Hmmm......Maybe that's how it came up before Naes.........Been too dmn long and I looked but can't find the thread. I think you need a tiple first.

Spaw

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Metchosin
Date: 11 Aug 00 - 03:48 AM

OK then.....is the instrument that Shooglenifty played, which I was told was a banjax or banjacks, a new hybrid that someones come up with or is this an older instrument? Any info?

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Escamillo
Date: 11 Aug 00 - 04:03 AM

For Spaw, and anyone interested in weird instruments, this Clicky thing will drive you to the page of Les Luthiers, Argentinian group of professional musicians who brought humor to classical music, and then to folk, and then to jazz and everything. They deserve a high ROTFLMAO.

See their LIRA DE ASIENTO (toilette sit lyre), GOM-HORN DA TESTA, CONTRACHITARRONE D'AMORE, etc.

One of them, Carlos López Puccio conducts the best (by far) local chamber choir, Estudio Coral de Buenos Aires, dedicated to serious music of the XX century, who has performed in main stages all over the world. Caution: the music of Les Luthiers is highly addictive.

Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Naemanson
Date: 11 Aug 00 - 07:41 AM

Andres, they look like they are fun. Unfortunately my Spanish isn't up to understanding the site. What is Carlos Puccio playing? He holds it like a fiddle but...

Imagine that crew working with Peter Schikele!

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: ol'troll
Date: 11 Aug 00 - 08:02 AM

About 20 years ago, autoharp ace Marty Schuman-may he rest in peace- had a local luthier build him a similar instrument. He called it a Banzouki. He made a tape before him death and,I believe, used it on a couple of cuts.I jammed with him lots of times where he played it. He also played a standard 5-string strung with nylon.It gave it a really funky sound.

troll

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: MandolinPaul
Date: 11 Aug 00 - 11:55 AM

Washboard Hank, of Peterborough, Ontario, used to have a huge bathroom sink, mounted on a square of plumbing pipes, with a tuba mouthpiece. He called it The Fallopian Tuba.

Paul.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 00 - 12:10 PM

Can you hold what I'm naming?

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Bert
Date: 11 Aug 00 - 12:31 PM

Andrés, you should not have introduced Spaw to that site. He is crazy enough without that sort of encouragement.

Bert

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Aug 00 - 12:59 PM

I think you have a point there.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Escamillo
Date: 11 Aug 00 - 01:36 PM

Tonight I'll look for an English page of Les Luthiers. What Carlos is holding is a LATIN or VIOLIN DE LATA = can-made violin. And he really plays it, there are sound samples in the page.

Er.. Spaw ! No, no, ..sorry .. don't enter that site - Those who Enter That Site are Told to Leave Any Hope !

Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Escamillo
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 12:23 AM

Sorry, could not find a page in English, but will keep searching. Meanwhile, with a very little Spanish you may enjoy comments, photos and sound samples in these two sites:

http://www.geocities.com/lefotos/otras.htm

http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/Stage/8317/

Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: P05139
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 11:50 PM

I know you've told us what it is but if the head was bent over it would be a lute!

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: P05139
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 11:51 PM

Mind you, it could be a lyre. GCSE Music y'see!

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Bernard
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 12:20 AM

How could it be a lyre? It can't even talk, never mind be untruthful...

As to the theory of bunging bits together to see what it sounds like - most 'accepted' instruments were invented that way! It's sort of the Folk Tradition, but for instruments.

Stefan Sobell of Newcastle upon Tyne invented a ten-stringed instrument he called a cittern - nowadays lots of people play them. He admits he pinched the name from a medieval instrument. If you're reading this, Stefan, I've got an Appalachian dulcimer you made in 1973 - it needs mending!

Adolf Sax tried to make a clarinet out of metal, but failed. The result was the Saxophone...

I tried to make music with a comb and paper. The result was a gobful of soggy tissue...

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Auxiris
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 04:58 AM

The instrument in the photo looks remarkably like the wooden banjo I've got, though it's considerably more modern, having been built in 1971. Bob, just out of curiosity, is the top of the instrument spruce or cedar?

cheers,

Aux

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Downeast Bob
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 12:07 PM

To tell you the truth, I don't know. I've seldom owned any guitars, so I'm not practiced at identifying what they are made of. I do know that the instrument feels surprisingly light. If cedar is ligher in weight than spruce, that's probably what it is. Yours is probably an August Pollmann reproduction. In spite of Spaw's dismissive but good-natured remarks about bastardaharps, luthiers have continued to make Pollman copies from time to time.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: P05139
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 12:32 PM

Yes, v.funny Bernard! Not liar, lyre!

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: GUEST,Jason Sobell
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 10:48 AM

> If you're reading this, Stefan, I've got an Appalachian dulcimer you made in 1973 - it needs mending!

Not much chance of him reading this, he's a bit of a technophobe, and out in the wilds of Hexhamshire they are lucky to have telephones, never mind broadband internet links :) Email him at [e-mail]

Cheers, Jason

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 11:40 AM

When I made something similar in 1980-odd, I based the banjo neck dimensions on a Barnes & Mullins Zither Banjo which belonged to my Great Grandad. The body is more circular, and about the size of a mandola or Sobell type cittern.
In my case the naming process was a cut-and-paste process from the different instrument names. So it became the Bandola; or the MandJo; or the BanCit. A friend of mine always asks for a tune on the Banjaxed. Mostly if asked what it is called I answer ERIC!.
That said, the tone is sweet. It sounds similar to an Appalachian Dulcimer, but is more versatile as I can play anything which I play on banjo. It is handy for accompanying songs which are too quiet to suit a banjo, or for playing on Paltalk sessions late in the evening, so as not to disturb the neighbours' sleep.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 01 - 08:11 PM

The "Irish Bouzouki" is another case in point of a new instrument pinching an existing name, since it's really got very little to do with the Greek Bouzouki.

I don't believe that all the worthwhile instruments have yet been invented.

For example I'd like to see someone experimenting with variations on the hurdy gurdy system - with the strings sounded by a turning wheel, I mean.

I can imagine a variant in which there was a fretboard like a mountain dulcimer, rather than the sort of keyboard hurdy gurdies have. It might work pretty well.

Or possibly not... I'd like to see it done I said -I'm not too sure I'd like to hear it, at least until the bugs had bee en well and truly ironed out.

I suppose you could call it a hurdimer gurdimer.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Sep 01 - 11:04 AM

Of course, if you are intersted in weird and wonderful instruments made of out of plumbing and so forth, Gerard Hoffnung was the man.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 11:55 AM

Refresh for those interested in banjo-madolin hydrids.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 01:01 PM

I've said it before and I will say it again. Its a Banjola and Goldtone do one for twice what I paid for my Ozark labelled version.Check out the Goldtone website for Banjola. They are a fun instrument and sound a bit like a Bazouki if you strum chords rather than picking.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Jeep man
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 09:44 PM

It's a Banjolin. I have one. Jim

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: LadyJean
Date: 06 Mar 04 - 10:43 PM

I am suddenly reminded of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves. They parted company for a while because Jeeves objected to Bertie playing the banjolele. Of course it ended with Bertie abandoning his hybrid.
With regards to lyres, I know a lady in the SCA who is a hetaera, and plays the lyre. She sings, very beautifully, in ancient Greek. I'm not sure what she sings about. But she sings.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: matai
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 03:37 AM

I must say this is a very good way to get a lot of people to look at your photograph, Bob. Congratulations.
Nice cut and paste job on the instrument too!
Like to hear how it sounds but. Or is it cardboard?
Cheers,
Matai

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: John Hardly
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 10:24 AM

still available

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: clansfolk
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 10:47 AM

Banjola

I prefer "Banjola" as it describes the instrument better, half banjo half Mandola.

I have 2 one is and Ozark (same as the Goldtone but cheaper) the other was hand made in the 60's.


Great fun.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Peace
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 04:49 PM

If you think of it as female, try Zelda.

If you think of it as male, try Percival.

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: clansfolk
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 07:41 PM

Dojo just finished a pint and hiding under the table!!


Ian and meself caught mid song - doh!!

N.B. The emply glass is the "Dojos" that's why it's under the table, Pi..... again the Dojo that is!

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: DonD
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 08:11 PM

I'm working on strings across a toilet bowl -- I call it a 'cistern' and I can't play it for shit!

Subject: RE: My pic. Can you name what I'm holding?
From: Peace
Date: 07 Mar 04 - 08:14 PM

What the heck are you using to strum it with?