An octave mandolin, Peter, has a normal (mandolin)size body but a much longer neck. So the strings are correspondingly longer and are tuned a full octave lower than a mandolin. It's one of the ways to get the sort-of-guitar-timbre sound without losing the normal fingering patterns for fiddle tunes which are designed and built to be played on four-or-eight strings-tuned to fifths. (Playing these tunes on guitar is rewarding but difficult).

Jon said: The other thing I found was I had to be very heavy with my playing to get results. Would you agree with my thoughts that this would be OK for somebody with playing experience on plectrum instruments but actually a very difficult instrument for somebody completely new?

I don't know, I think I've lost my perspective. The usual comment people make is "how can you play between those tiny frets?" I've always thought it was easier, cause all the notes are closer together and you don't have those awkward reaches. In fact I have long thought that if you had a nice easy-playing mando, and put just four strings on it, it would be ideal to start kids on. (They tell me this makes is a ukulele, but I mean a real instrument). Tried it with my kids a bit, and it seemed to work o.k.--the instrument had uncomfortable frets, though, and they didn't keep it up.

Bluegrass-setup instruments are for sure harder to finger, they use heavier strings. But different mandolins have astonishly different playing characteristics. Like I said, I've been playing the same nice cheap thing for ten years now, like it just as much as lots I've tried in the $5-800 category, and just a couple of years ago I tried a 1917 Gibson Model A. I was utterly floored by the sound and playability. Like nothing I've ever played--and that's the cheapest one they made then!

I think the real reason more people don't play mando is because they don't think of it. Most people know they exist but don't know when they're looking at one. "Is that a ukulele?" Then again nobody tells mandolin jokes either.

W-O