Mandora and Bloch
The Mandora project proceeds.
The shape I had in mind when I made the mold doesn't seem to have come out in the finished shape. I was trying to make a pear shaped instrument but it looks more like an onion or garlic shape.
Innovation through incompetence.
My research showed several instruments called mandora, except that the heads and peg boxes were different designs and they had from four to twelve strings.
Mandolas and mandolins and others in the lute family had the same range of variation so who knows what exactly a mandora is anyway.
Maybe this will be an entirely new kind of lute.
Call it allium because it looks like a giant pod of elephant garlic.
We didn't subscribe to the whole series for the Chamber music festival so we missed the wonderful performance of the Ernest Bloch quintet for piano and strings no 1.
Heard it on the radio and wished we could be there.
Monday we are back again and get to hear a world premier of Christopher Theofanidis' "Summer Verses" with movements labeled 'very,very happy', 'lyric, wistful', 'Robert' (?), and 'noble, resolute'. I guess we'll find out what that's all about tomorrow.
I hope it's awful, most "new music" is, except mine.
The worse the competition is, the better I feel
Not that I feel so hot right at the moment anyway. Right at the moment my throat is all clogged up with a cold or some malady caused by all the wood dust I've been inhaling. My voice is the coffin with Caesar and I must wait 'till it come back to me.
The shape I had in mind when I made the mold doesn't seem to have come out in the finished shape. I was trying to make a pear shaped instrument but it looks more like an onion or garlic shape.
Innovation through incompetence.
My research showed several instruments called mandora, except that the heads and peg boxes were different designs and they had from four to twelve strings.
Mandolas and mandolins and others in the lute family had the same range of variation so who knows what exactly a mandora is anyway.
Maybe this will be an entirely new kind of lute.
Call it allium because it looks like a giant pod of elephant garlic.
We didn't subscribe to the whole series for the Chamber music festival so we missed the wonderful performance of the Ernest Bloch quintet for piano and strings no 1.
Heard it on the radio and wished we could be there.
Monday we are back again and get to hear a world premier of Christopher Theofanidis' "Summer Verses" with movements labeled 'very,very happy', 'lyric, wistful', 'Robert' (?), and 'noble, resolute'. I guess we'll find out what that's all about tomorrow.
I hope it's awful, most "new music" is, except mine.
The worse the competition is, the better I feel
Not that I feel so hot right at the moment anyway. Right at the moment my throat is all clogged up with a cold or some malady caused by all the wood dust I've been inhaling. My voice is the coffin with Caesar and I must wait 'till it come back to me.
posted by Lane Savant at 11:15 AM
16 Comments:
Concerts, concerts,
music/music--what a life, sir! Yes, this means
the Glennster is back in town;
came in over the weekend.
Our 6,000 mile road trip
was a traumatic triumph.
Colorado shined,
Pike's Peak loomed,
the grandsons screamed
with delight to see
their "Grammy".
I, of course, was
superfilous in this regard.
Texas was hot as hell,
triple digits, begging for
rain. My mother-in-law had
her 84th birthday while
we were there, and she
really seemed to appreciate
both our arrival
and our departure.
We did play a couple of days,
but unfortunately, we had
to log 600 mile days,
with me needing to stop
every hour to stretch
my aching legs.
I slipped on a wet bathroom
floor second day out,
and came down with a
raging painful case of
thrombotic phlebitis in
my left leg. Dropped into
a Texas ER and had a doppler;
deep veins clear,
shallow veins very thrombosed.
The vascular tech in the
ER was a cool guy, and just
recommended aspirin, exercise,
and pain pills, and we
were out of there. To my
delight, thanks to
Medicare, there were NO
fees; although we expect a
bill or two to surface
over this next couple weeks.
The phlebitis is much
improved after being home
for two days, and knocking
down aspirin like Robert
Blake in IN COLD BLOOD.
Vacations then, are mixed
blessing, enit?
Next year we will not drive
so far, and will stop
and play more.
Triple digits temps, like
113 degrees do not
please me much either.
It's use the AC of die
time. We spent a day in
the Big Bend country,
down along the Rio Grande.
Melva loves staying at
Indian Lodge, a motel built
during the depression at
Fort Davis. Coming into
Arizona, headed to Page,
we did manage to stumble
into the Wuyshaki ruins
that you and Meredith
visited last year. They
are pretty impressive;
that and the latent volcano.
We, also, managed to get
several peeks at the south
rim of the Grand Canyon,
before staying in Page.
I was a groaning fussing
travel companion. My Miss
M is a saint to put up
with a whiny gimp like me.
She has already taken off
again; no holding her down.
She is at a conference in
Yakima. She loves the
Mexican restaurants there.
Your woodworking skills
are impressive for sure.
"Innovation through incompetence"
now that is a sweathshirt
logo if ever I read one.
I would like to add to that,
"a giant pod of elephant garlic".
Hope you have fun tonight
at the next concert.
It must be nice having
Anonomann and the LL here
for a time. I am having
a bit of a time getting
back in the saddle again.
I came in for 4 hours
yesterday to reclaim my
space. Another employee
had been using it for the
last two weeks, covering
for me. I got another
nice email from poet
Cortney Bledsoe, alerting
me to more of his poetry
coming out in a chapbook.
I reconfigured your
JACKSON, AMADEUS too.
I liked it.
Rick Mobbs is actively
blogging again, so I
something by him as
well. I have a daunting
task of endeavoring on
projecting activities
for the TFC for August
too; but hey, I brought
all that down on my
own head, as they say.
This is already my
treatment week. I will
swallow my pride and ask
for an extra day of IV
therapy. Man, the antibodies
have ganged up on my ass.
I am dragging my butt
and still whining a lot.
Sure is good to
be back.
Glenn
Sonofabitch! The Comments police just informed me that my
lengthy comments were NOT
ACCEPTABLE cuz they were more
than 4,786 characters.
Christ on a crutch,
what's next?
Here is the data I had
to delete from above comment:
The mandora or mandore refers to various types of lutes. At first, in the Renaissance, the term was applied to the treble lute and in such usage it is difficult to distinguish from the mandola, the simple lute that is the ancestor of the mandolin. Later the term was used for the gallizona or gallichon, a type of 6 or 8-course bass lute (possibly a descendant of the guiterne and/or chitarra italiana used, mainly for basso continuo, in Germany, Austria and Bohemia particularly during the 18th and early 19th centuries[4]. The Scottish mandora is a tenor instrument, more similar to the mandola. The bass type, similarly to the theorbo and other baroque lutes, has a vaulted body (shell) constructed of separate ribs, a flat soundboard with either a carved rose or one which is inset into the soundhole, and a bridge (without a saddle) consisting of a wooden bar acting as a string-holder glued to the soundboard. Unique to this instrument is the neck, which is long enough to allow for ten to 12 tied gut frets. The pegbox is either straight and set at a sharp angle to the neck (much like a lute pegbox), or gently curving and set at a shallow angle, either case being fitted with laterally-inserted tuning pegs (although sometimes a flat pegboard with sagittal pegs is found). The strings were of gut (now replaced by such substitutes as nylon) and are strung either singly or, especially on Italian instruments, in double courses. However, on German-made instruments, the first course (highest in pitch) is usually single (a chanterelle) and often has its own separate raised peg rider/holder attached to the pegbox. The number of courses varies from six to eight. Open string lengths tend to be fairly long (62–72 cm) on German instruments, but shorter (55–65 cm) on late Italian ones, probably because they tended to be tuned to a higher pitch.
Luthiers who produced mandoras in the first half of the 18th century were Gregor Ferdinand Wenger in Augsburg, Jacob Goldt of Hamburg, Jacob Weiss of Salzburg, David Buchstetter of Regensburg and Mattias Greisser of Innsbruck. Italian-style instruments are represented by Martino Hell of Genoa, Enrico Ebar of Venice, David Tecchler of Rome, Antonio Scoti of Milan and, toward the end of the century, Antonio Monzino and Giuseppe Presbler of Milan.
At least 50 original instruments survive in collections around the world. Examples are found in museums in Berlin, Claremont (California), Copenhagen, Edinburgh, The Hague, Leipzig, Milan, Munich and Paris, New York and St. Petersburg. Many of these instruments are found in a more or less unaltered state, and therefore are often used as models for modern reconstructions.
The piece above was fresh
from the Net, of course,
and perhaps it helps to
clear up Jannie's confusion,
although that in itself
might take more than a
couple paragraphs from
Wikipedia, enit?
Glenn
Hallo, Lane!
The mandora may look strange; the important thing is "how does it sound??"!! Hope it sounds great -- and that you compose something for it and another instrument; maybe the rakett -- or the violin, so James Ehnes might like it and choose it as the next composition to be commissioned for the Seattle Chamber Music Festival. Anything you compose will probably be better than the Bloch they played on Friday night;
its cacaphony was horrible to listen to; I'm surprised your radio did not blow up while it was on!!
Wednesday, I fly back to the LL and Deutschland!! I can't wait!!
Euch alle on Redwing: Alles Gute!!
Tschuess, (nest week, I can write that word with the proper Umlaut und S-zett!),
Anonomann
allo, Glenn!
VERY sorry to read of the bathroom slip and its consequences!! Hope you are soon feeling better!!
Those 600-mile drives can be dangerous, too (falling asleep at the wheel,which happened to me once!; thanks to a seat belt in the rental car and St. Helens' volcanic dust into which the car rolled, I survived UNinjured!! But decided to take the train on future long journeys; it is MUCH safer and MUCH more comfortable than driving!! Thank Uncle Sam for Amtrak!!!!
Tschuess,
Anonomann
Well, here it is,
Hump Day, extend a leg,
Dude. Thanks Anonomann for
your kindness and concern.
Yes, though I am headed to
the doctor today, I am feeling
much better. Melva will still
be out of town until
tomorrow night. I was able
to use the new poetry by
Cortney Bledsoe from his
chapbook. It was cool that
he alerted me, and provided
a link to find it. There are
some very neat compassionate
poets out there. Certainly glad
to have "found" a few.
Bobby Byrd is still in the
throes of sadness living next
door to the war zone there
in Juarez; drug czars are
tough, very tough--money talks,
buys cops, the army, politicians-
just ask Dick Cheney & "W".
Joy Harjo is still on the
road a lot. I snagged some of
her prose from her site though;
good stuff as always.
Janet Leigh has had a burst
of energy, whipping out three
poems with fervor. Snagged
them too. After a year of
"making a living" working
on movie sets, for the moment
Rick Mobbs is back to
blogging. He is off to
Chicago today to audition
for a new reality show set
up by Sarah Jessica Parker,
on new unknown artists,
for the Bravo network.
I hope he gets picked.
It would kick start his
career, and he certainly
does deserve a break.
Like so many artists,
he has to have a regular
job to pay the bills, even
being as talented as he is.
I am like five postings
behind on Jannie Funster's
blog, as expected; it is
hard to keep up with her
posse and her creativity
and zanniness. Hope your
Monday concert was cool.
Is this your music class
day? Fully expect a new
posting from you momentarily.
I wonder if those long
distance cyclists, like
doing the STP, get monkey
butt? Some do probably.
Now that you are actively
constructing so many archaic
instruments, will there be
a Palmer composition using
them? Or does your computer
music program include them?
Glenn
"Life is full of misery,loneliness,
and suffering--and it's all over
much too soon."
...........Woody Allen
Been a while since any of my poetry has been used here. Are you mad at me?
............Emily
There she goes again, begging for attention! Get a life, or better yet, enjoy your death.
..........Edgar Poo
Oh, do you have a pass out of Pergurtory? The darkness of your
poor demented soul is sadness
to the infinite.
........Emily
Bite me.
Blow me.
Sit on this.
...........Edgar A. Poo
Hay kidz, play nice--whatdahell is da matter here? Yer luv affair gets
on da rest of us nerves. Nice to have youse back, Glenn. Too bad youse got even more gimped up in da process of havin yer vacation der.
..........Vinnie
Did you come close to Little Big Horn again? Now that is a vacation attraction.
........Georgie A. Custer
Actually no, General. We stopped several times in Arizona to look at Anasatzi ruins, but that was a little before your time.
Glenn
What's missing here is some gay and lesbian humor and hubrus.
........Ellen DeG.
Actually I had a roommate in college we used to call Monkeybutt. Skinny little faggot; loved bananas, mostly organic and found in men's trousers.
.........Tiny Tim
Hallo, Lane!
Yes, most "new" music (except yours) IS awful!!
Tschüß,
Anonomann
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