Here's some more information about the instruments we all play. As you can guess this isn't our own work and we promise that we don't mean any harm by having borrowed it!

Mandolin

Stringed instrument derived from the lute about 1700 in Italy. Of several kinds made in different cities, the Neapolitan mandolin became most popular. It has a deep, pear-shaped body and four pairs of steel strings tuned like a violin (G D A E, upward from the G below middle C). It is played with a plectrum, which creates the illusion of sustained tones by its rapid tremolo between the strings of each pair. The strings, hitched to a metal plate at the base of the body, run over a bridge and along the fretted fingerboard to machine-head tuning pegs. The belly angles down from the bridge to the base, increasing string tension for more brilliance of tone. The oval sound hole is surrounded by a protective shell plate. Composers for the mandolin include Ludwig van Beethoven, W. A. Mozart, Antonio Vivaldi, and Igor Stravinsky. Around 1900 mandolin orchestras came into vogue, with families of mandolins ranging from soprano to bass. U.S. folk music also adopted the mandolin about 1900; a flat-backed version is played in bluegrass bands.

Built as follows:

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Mandola

A big brother to the mandolin, somewhat larger in form and lower in tone, found in both bowl and flat-back models. In the ensemble it carries the middle harmonies, counter or descant melodies, much as the viola in the string ensemble.

Do not confuse with Mandora, mandore, mandole terms for instruments of the early small lute family.

In the modern context, two varients of the mandola are mostly found; The Tenor Mandola tuned a fifth below the mandolin also the Octave Mandola tuned a full octave lower than the mandolin, this instrument is popular in Irish music.

The F&F Club has one Tenor Mandola Players at the present.

The Mandolone - Bass Mandoline is normally found in Cello and Bass form, tuned as in the string ensemble. Rarely found in the U K to-day.

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Guitar

Musical instrument of the lute family, having a flat, waisted body with a round sound hole and a fretted neck along which run six strings. The strings are fastened at the top of the neck to tuning screws, and at the other end to a bridge glued to the instrument's sound board, or belly. The top three strings are usually made of gut or nylon; the others are metal. The strings are tuned E A d g b e1 (E = second E below middle C; e1 = E above middle C). The player's left-hand fingers stop the strings at the appropriate frets to produce the correct pitches; the right-hand fingers pluck the strings. Some metal-strung guitars are plucked with a small flat plectrum, or pick.

Guitarlike instruments have existed since ancient times, but the first written mention of the guitar proper is from the 14th century. In its earliest form it had three double courses (pairs) of strings plus a single string (the highest). The guitar probably originated in Spain, where by the 16th century it was the counterpart among the middle and lower classes of the aristocracy's vihuela, an instrument of similar shape and ancestry that had six double courses. The guitar became popular in other European countries in the 16th and 17th centuries, and by the late 17th century a fifth course of strings had been added below the other four. In the mid-18th century the guitar attained its modern form, when the double courses were made single and a sixth string was added above the lower five. Guitar makers in the 19th century broadened the body, increased the curve of the waist, thinned the belly, and changed the internal bracing. The old wooden tuning pegs were replaced by a modern machine head.

Guitars ranging from contrabass to treble and varying in their number of strings are played in Spain and Latin America. The twelve-string guitar has six double courses in standard tuning. The Hawaiian, or steel, guitar is laid across the knees of the player, who stops the metal strings by gliding a metal bar along the neck. The strings are usually tuned to the notes of a given chord. The electric guitar, developed for popular music in the United States in the 1930s, usually has a solid, non-resonant body. The sound of its strings is both amplified and manipulated electronically by the performer. American musician and inventor Les Paul developed prototypes for the solid-bodied electric guitar and popularised the instrument beginning in the 1940s. As an instrument of classical music, the guitar came to prominence largely through the efforts of the Spanish composer Francisco Tarrega and the Spanish guitar virtuoso Andrés Segovia.

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Banjo

Stringed instrument of the lute family, with an open-backed round body consisting of a circular wood hoop over which is stretched a vellum belly (formerly nailed on, now held tense by a screw mechanism); a long, narrow, fretted neck; and metal or metal-wound gut strings. The strings run from a tailpiece, over a bridge (a piece of wood that holds the strings off of the belly of the banjo) held in place by their pressure, up the neck to rear tuning pegs (machine screws on modern banjos). Five strings are typical: four full-length strings and a shorter fifth "thumb" string running to a tuning screw halfway up the neck. Often a five-string banjo body is suspended in a metal or wood resonator.

The only Western stringed instrument with a vellum belly, the banjo originated in Africa and was brought to America in the 17th century by black slaves. Early banjos had fretless necks, a varying number of strings, and, sometimes, gourd bodies. Adopted by white musicians in 19th-century minstrel-show troupes, the banjo gained frets and metal strings. The five-string banjo, plucked with the fingers, is common in folk music and commercial bluegrass bands. The plectrum-plucked four-string banjo was popular about 1900 in vaudeville bands.

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Percussion

Gordon doesn't play a full kit because he plays drums that are in a high pitch to suit the instruments and music we play. For example he uses a Piccolo Snare and a thin Crash to give that higher pitch. Sorry for any offence caused to the sterling Percussion section by what was previously written :o)

On the snare drum, eight to ten wire-bound gut strings, or snares, usually are stretched across the lower of the two heads; they vibrate against the heads as the membranes are struck. The snare drum is related to the tabor, a double-headed drum, often with a simple gut snare, which is played in combination with a three-hole pipe in modern European folk music, as it was in the Middle Ages (from about the 5th century to the 15th century AD). The bass drum of Turkish military music was introduced into European music in the 18th century. The bucket-shaped, paired bongos and the cylindrical or barrel-shaped conga are single-headed drums of Afro-Cuban origin. The tom-tom is a shallow double-headed drum associated with Native American tribes of North America.

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Free Reed Instruments

We currently have an English Concertina in the orchestra.

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