Mandolin other examples of songs with mandolin. Modern day musicians include Antony Surendra, V. Hemapala Perera, Ananda Perera, Dinesh Subasinghe, Susantha Kariyakarawana, Sarath Fernando, Nalaka Sajee, Haasriza Imran and Buddhika Perera The mandolin has a history on Tobago and Trinidad as the bandolin, dating back before World War I. It was a small instrument, approximately 20 x 40 centimeters, strung with 8 strings in four courses of two each. Before the war, it was commonly a round-backed instrument, made of strips of wood. The flat-backed version appeared after the war. Occasionally a turtle shell would be used for the back of
Octave mandolin in unison. Alternate tunings exist in which the strings in some courses are tuned to octaves, rather than unisons, but this is more typical of the Irish Bouzouki. Usually, courses of 2 adjacent strings are doubled (tuned to the same pitch). The standard octave mandolin tuning is G2 G2 • D3 D3 • A3 A3 • E4 E4, so the lowest open strings are tuned to the lowest 'G' on the guitar, and the highest strings are tuned to the same 'E' as the highest string of the guitar. This tuning is one octave below the mandolin (or a fourth