Mandolin and mandola compared - G3, G2 and C3 tunings

Demonstrating the difference in range and tone between:

1. The mandolin in standard tuning G3 D4 a4 e5
2. The mandola tuned to an octave below a mandolin G2 D3 a3 e4
3. The mandola tuned a fourth above or a fifth below the mandolin to C3 G3 D4 a4

by playing the G major scale in three octaves and three G chords. And yes, the 2nd demonstration is played upside down, as the instrument got to me strung as a right handed octave mandolin, but I am a lefthanded player. The 3rd clip shows it converted to a lefthanded mandola.

During the 17th century, the Italic peninsula already knew two instruments named mandola and mandore. This name obviously is a corruption of the pantur/panduri/pondar/phandar/bandola/bandurria/bandolim/tambur/dombra root, names given to instruments all over Southern Europe and West to Central Asia.

Some linguists and ethnologists like to propose that it was named after the Italic root for “almond”, mandorla, due to it’s shape. What many people don’t seem to know, is that the mandola came before the mandolin; the latter being a piccolo version. The Italian term mandolino is a diminutive, meaning “little mandola”. The instruments relate to each other in name, function and tuning how the violin relates to the viola.

Both instruments became a mainstay in both folk and classical music, really an impressive feat, if you think about it. Due to it’s role in opera, the mandolin would soon be associated with serenading and seducing. If you know what a baroque lute looks like, with it’s bowlback, tied frets (gut in the past, nylon today) and pegbox, you already know what those smaller instruments used to look like. Around 1835, the Vinaccia family of Naples is said to have developed the modern staved bowlback Neapolitan mandolino, although this claim is not without controversy.

The mandolin would take on different forms over the centuries; such as the domeback pear shape here, a flatback teardrop shape or a carved back and sides (modeled after the construction of the violin). And regarding the pear shape... It is a miscommunication how this often is refered to as a Portuguese shape. The Portuguese/Brasilian bandolim is a related instrument of the mandolin family, albeit constructed a little differently.

They were once strung with gut or silk strings, originally in single courses. Nylon can be used to replicate that sound. But the instruments have been using steel strings in double courses since Vinaccia, at least. The mandola has all strings wound but the treble course of a’. The mandolin is tuned a fourth above, with the two bass courses wound and the two treble courses of a’ and e’ unwound.

Today, the naming conventions are not uniform anylonger. On Crete, mandolas are played in eithet C or G tuning. What is refered to as a mandola in Italy, is often called a tenor mandola in the UK or an alt mandolin in Germany. The term contralto mandola is also used today in a more formal setting. Those are operatic terms, each denoting the high male and the low female vocal range. Germans will commonly tune any regular mandola an octave below a mandolin, instead. But the actual long necked octave mandolin, also regionally called octave mandola, was later everse engineered to create a bigger mandolin! We remember... After the mandolin was invented to create a smaller mandola.

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The tenor contralto mandola is tuned like a tenor banjo for standard jazz tuning.

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The octave mandolin is the tenor mandolin whereas the normal mandolin is the contralto ones. And the baritone mandola is the mandocello.