Mandolin orchestra revives earlier craze

SANDPOINT — Blame it on The Celebrated Spanish Students. From the time that traveling musical troupe came to the U.S. in 1880, packing their tiny instruments in tow, there has been a love affair between America and the mandolin.

At the end of the 19th century and right through the turn of the 20th, people in this country got bit en masse by the bug, as mandolin orchestras popped up all over the nation. Rural areas, in particular, were a hotbed for this new sound.

“These orchestras became all the rage,” said Marj Cooke, who, just this past week, started up a mandolin ensemble of her own in Sandpoint. “Every little town and high school had a mandolin orchestra.”

Cooke’s group meets Wednesday evenings at the Music Conservatory of Sandpoint, carrying on a tradition that began 135 years earlier in the U.S. and has an even longer history in southern Europe — the mandolin’s place of origin. Vivaldi and other composers wrote pieces specifically for the instrument — not too big a jump, since it’s tuned exactly like a violin.

The mandolin had been popular as a parlor instrument since about 1850. It wasn’t until the early 1900s, however, that the concept of a proper orchestra was fleshed out on the factory floor of the Gibson Company.

In 1902, Gibson was limiting its production to mandolins alone. Back then, the company was in heated competition with firms such as Lyon & Healy, which advertised itself as the leader in mandolin manufacturing.

Within a decade, Gibson’s catalogs flaunted a full array of mandolin family shapes and sizes, having borrowed tunings from the orchestra to begin building mandolas, mandocellos and mandobasses.

Like Harold Hill of “The Music Man” fame, Gibson sales reps blanketed the countryside, touting the relative ease of playing the instrument and the community pride that would come with forming an orchestra. Unlike Hill, however, Gibson actually delivered the instruments, swarming the competition and making itself a brand name in the process.

Different from the smooth, bowed, legato strains of a traditional string orchestra, the mandolin is played with a pick, giving it a crisp sound and making it more approachable for beginning enthusiasts, according to Cooke.

“They’re not all that hard to play,” she said. “The mandolin is symmetrical — both in its tuning and in its string spacing.”

Both Cooke and her husband, Dave, are multi-instrumentalists, slinging an impressive number of classical, bluegrass and Celtic instruments between them.

 As comfortable in an old-time music jam as they are playing orchestral music, the couple has developed a special fondness for the mandolin — as witnessed by a collection that currently includes at least a couple of mandolins, an octave mandolin and mandocello.

Over the past several years, the Cookes have attended annual conventions, where four days of master classes, workshops and rehearsals culminate in a mandolin orchestra performance.

“There’s no sound quite like a large mandolin orchestra doing a tremolo,” Marj said, closing her eyes and smiling at the thought. She’s transported — and you can almost hear the sound based on her description.

Cooke plans to bring that sound to life in Sandpoint as she gets the new orchestra off the ground here.

The prerequisites are simple: Anyone with a mandolin, nylon stringed guitar or bass viol — also commonly known as the string bass or upright bass — is welcome to come and play. A basic ability to read music is helpful, she said, but the group is open to anyone from professional players to total beginners.

“We want people of all abilities to come and have the joy of doing something real — to be part of the experience of making music,” Cooke explained.

The level of the music falls within the easy to intermediate range and the repertoire spans both musical genres and historical periods, covering marches, ragtime, waltzes, polkas, hymns and classical arias.

“I would say it’s light classical and music that was popular in the teens and early 1920s,” said Cooke.

Each 90-minute session will be broken up into an hour for working on music as a group, followed by 30 minutes of breakout rehearsals for players to go over their individual parts as a section.

“Eventually, we’ll spend the entire time playing as a group,” the director said.

The new mandolin orchestra has made nylon stringed guitars welcome to fill out the bass notes which — at least for the higher-pitched mandolin and mandola — don’t fall within the other instruments’ range.

And since Sandpoint already is notable for having its own harp guitar builders in the form of local luthiers Tony and Dave Powell, owners of Tonedevil Guitars, the Cookes hope to attract a couple of those hybrid musical instruments to the orchestra.

The sound of the mandolin family and the harp guitar are a natural marriage, Marj Cooke shared, pointing to a photo from a 1912 Gibson catalog that shows a seven-person ensemble that performed with five “mandos” and two harp guitars.

Realizing that words such as “orchestra” and “conservatory” might frighten most newcomers, she reiterated that this new mandolin orchestra offers “easy entry for non-readers.”

“They can start from scratch and be in the orchestra,” Cooke said. “We have an attitude of ‘get the notes you can get and just skip the harder places at first.’”

This is the second go-round for a mandolin group in Sandpoint. The first, not coincidentally, also was founded by Cooke after she retired from a 33-year career as an elementary school teacher in 2002. That ensemble included about 12 players, some of whom traveled from as far away as Spokane to join the rehearsals.

The new orchestra will cater more directly to beginners, with Cooke making herself available before and after rehearsals at no charge to help new players build a musical foundation.

“I’m happy to do that, because I just love the fun of playing with a group,” she said.

Before the first rehearsal took place last week, Cooke put together music books and rehearsal CDs for each of the parts — another handy aid to get beginners up to speed.

The Mandolin Orchestra meets on Wednesdays from 6:30-8 p.m., upstairs at the Music Conservatory of Sandpoint, located at 110 Main St. in the former Sandpoint City Hall building.

A small fee is charged to help cover the cost of using the rehearsal space and scholarships are available in some circumstances, the director said.

High school students can get music credit for joining the orchestra, she added, and students are welcome to attend.

For more information about the Mandolin Orchestra, contact Marj Cooke at (208) 263-6742 or call the Music Conservatory of Sandpoint at (208) 265-4444.