5 string mandocaster

I just completed a 5 string mandocaster for Will Fly.   The original Fenders which inspired it were Strat style instruments with 4 single strings, and were made between 1956 and 1976.  A 5 string version was made in Korea between 2000 and 2002.

I made mine with a mandolin scale length of 355mm.  The obvious tuning is in fifths, C G D A E (or rather: c  g  d’ a” e”), a mandolin with an extra low C.  Or a mandola with an extra top E.  But this instrument has single strings so perhaps it should really be thought of as a short scale tenor guitar with an extra top E – a “mandotenor” which is what Will has christened it.  Whatever you call it this tuning works out pretty well for an electric instrument.  However you’re not going to see many acoustic instruments tuned like this.  It’s no accident that instruments tuned in 5ths – violin and mandolin family instruments – tend to have four strings or courses (string pairs).  Instruments like guitars with 6 strings/courses are more likely to be tuned in 4ths.  More strings and you not only find trouble with breaking top strings or rattling bottom strings but also you’re asking the sound box to operate over a wider frequency range.  7 string guitars are almost always solid electrics.  I’ve played a five string fiddle, a very nice instrument from a very good maker.  I did my grades on viola and very much enjoy the sound of that low C string but to me this instrument felt compromised at both ends of the register, lacking both “bite” on the top E string compared with a violin and “growl” on the bottom C compared with a viola.  But perhaps I should add that my ability as a bowed instrument player is pretty modest, perhaps a good player could make more of it.

Of course 5 strings or courses offer other possibilities.  Cittern players often use C G C G C or D G D G D.  For more key versatility there are tunings like C G D A D as used – an octave lower – on the baritone cittern I made for Doc Rossi.

And of course it could always be tuned like Keef’s 5 string Tele, G D G B D.  Play them old mandocaster blues!

Here’s the mandocaster / mandotenor in action, played by Will:

I’m sure I first saw this on a harpsichord at Fenton House in London but I can’t confirm that.  I should try and get there some time and have a look.  Google tells me the verse is associated with the 16th century instrument maker Kaspar Tieffenbruker.  The Latin version Mortua Dolce Cano is also the title of the blog of Wm. R. Cumpiano to whom we are all indebted for writing the standard work on guitar making, Guitarmaking, Tradition and Technology.

Around 15 years ago I bought some cherry wood, quite literally a tree trunk, from a woodsman in Hemstead Forest, Kent.  When I bought it I was in the woods, surrounded by living timber.  Then for many years it lay dead in my workshop, gradually drying out and seasoning.  Finally it was ready for use and it did indeed feel like bringing something back to life.

Of course only a small part of a tree trunk is suitable for guitar making.  I have a neighbour, a house carpenter, and I used his band saw – way larger than mine – to convert the log into the pieces I wanted, in return he got the rest for making kitchens.  I’ve so far had five guitars and two mandolins from that wood and there’s still a few instruments to come.

This is what the owner of a steel strung guitar made from this wood felt about his instrument:

“Hey Ian,
a few months later…
the guitar is sounding better than ever. I am growing to love its very particular qualities. I can play delicate things, I can play really snappy things. It is so nice and light to hold, its low action is easy on the hands. It is crystal clear… Very, very nice! It seems the tonalities of the cherry are coming out more now, it is so unlike a rosewood or mahogany backed guitar, though I could not define quite why. I am trying Beeswing now and I just feel this guitar, in the final analysis, has something of the British Isles in it, exactly what I wanted.”

RB, Umbria

Cherry and the other fruit tree woods have long been used for instrument making but they aren’t the first choice for modern guitars.  It’s very hard to describe sound but I found this particular wood contributed something very clear, almost transparent, to the sound quality of these instruments.  Ideal for Celtic finger picking, probably less so for Bluegrass.  But I’ve played a Martin Dreadnought (property of Jamie Freeman who runs Union Music in Lewes) made from North American cherry and there was nothing wrong with that.

Now dead, it does indeed sing sweetly.