Electric mandolin 4-string version. A related instrument, the Bahian guitar, was developed in Brazil beginning in the 1940s. Bahian guitars typically have a solid body and 4 or 5 single-course strings tuned in fifths, but are considered to be electric versions of the cavaquinho rather than the mandolin. Both four string single course and eight string double course solid body mandolins have been produced by several makers, as well as five string single course models. From 1956 to 1976, Fender produced a four string version which they simply called the "Fender Electric Mandolin". Its body shape was based on a smaller version
Mandolin This has been sometimes modified to an elongated hole, called a D-hole. The body has a rounded almond shape with flat or sometimes canted soundboard. The type was developed in Europe in the 1850s. The French and Germans called it a Portuguese mandolin, although they also developed it locally. The Germans used it in Wandervogel. The bandolim is commonly used wherever the Spanish and Portuguese took it: in South America, in Brazil (Choro) and in the Philippines. In the early 1970s English luthier Stefan Sobell developed a large-bodied, flat-backed mandolin with a carved soundboard, based on his own cittern design;