Mandolin
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The Mandolin is a small, stringed instrument, similar to a small lute. You play it by plucking the strings with a thin, plastic plectrum. The pear-shaped example shown here is decorated with tortoiseshell and has a rounded back consisting of several slender ribs. It has four sets, or "courses," of strings tuned like a violin. The mandolin is often used as a solo instrument.
| Family |
| Strings |
| Pitch range |
| Two-and-a-half octaveos. |
| Material |
| Rosewood with inlaid tortoiseshell, and wire strings. |
| Size |
| Total length about 24 in (60 cm) ; body length about 13 in (33 cm). |
| Origins |
| The mandolin evolved from the small 15th-century mandola, a small instrument with a lute-like body and four or five pairs of gut strings. |
| Classification |
| Chordophone: an instrument that produces its sound by the vibration of strings. |
| And also... |
| Mozart used the mandolin in his opera "Don Giovanni" (1787). The character Don Giovanni plays a romantic serenade on a mandolin beneath the window of a lady. |
