MANDOLIN

MANDOLIN The mandolin, of Neapolitan origin, has become a key voice in BLUEGRASS and country music. Its odyssey into country music is a typical American story of experimentation and innovation. The eight-stringed instrument, tuned like a fiddle, originally was made with a bowl-shaped back, like a lute. In the late nineteenth century American musical instrument designer Orville Gibson came up with a new idea: a carved-body instrument, to emulate the design of the great violins. The back of the…