A mandola is a stringedmusical instrument. Mandolas have 8 strings, in 4 pairs. Each pair of strings is tuned in unison, and are a fifth apart from adjacent pairs, giving an identical tuning to a viola (C-G-D-A low-to-high), a fifth lower than a mandolin. Unlike a viola, the neck of a mandola is fretted and it is typically played with a plectrum.
Like the guitar, the mandola is a poorly sustaining instrument --- a note cannot be maintained for an arbitrary time as with a viola.
Similar instruments are the mandolin, the octave mandolin (an octave below the mandolin), and the mandocello (octave mandola), which is tuned an octave below the mandola (like a cello). All of these have 8 strings tuned in unison.
The instrument is tuned in fifths, to the pitches of the viola (C-G-D-A low-to-high), a fifth lower than a mandolin; the courses are tuned in unison rather than in octaves.
Like the guitar, the mandola is a poorly sustaining instrument — a note cannot be sustained for an arbitrary time as with the viola, although the technique known as tremolo (tremolando), a rapid alternation of the plectrum on a single pair of strings, allows the approximation of a long-sustained note.
Mandolas are not uncommon in folk music and sometimes used in Irish traditional music, although far less often, in the latter case, than the octavemandola, Irish bouzouki, and modern cittern.
The octave note is the same note as the open string but a whole set of notes higher in pitch.
The mandola family can be tuned easily by getting the bottom string or course in tune and then tuning each higher course to the previous string at the 7th fret - they should sound the same.
Octave tuning a mandola is to tune the mandola a whole octave below the standard mandolin tuning.
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