What is the lowest note on a common traditional four-string mandolin?
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
Mandolin oval, or shaped like a calligraphic (f-hole). A round or oval sound hole may be covered or bordered with decorative rosettes or purfling. Mandolins evolved from the lute family in Italy during the 17th and 18th centuries, and the deep bowled mandolin, produced particularly in Naples, became common in the 19th century. Dating to c. 13,000 BC, a cave painting in the Trois Frères cave in France depicts what some believe is a musical bow, a hunting bow used as a single-stringed musical instrument. From the musical bow, families of stringed instruments developed; since each string played a single note,