Mandore

The mandore is a member of the lutes (Hornbostel–Sachs 321.321). Learn how it makes its sound and explore related instruments.

How the mandore makes its sound

In the Hornbostel–Sachs system, which classifies instruments by how they produce sound, the mandore belongs to the lutes: strings run parallel to a soundboard and along a neck – the family of the guitar, violin, sitar and oud.

More broadly it is one of the chordophones (string instruments), where sound comes from vibrating strings, amplified by a resonating body.

Its timbre – the colour that lets you tell it apart from other instruments playing the same note – comes from the mix of overtones its body and resonator emphasise.

From Wikipedia

The mandore is a musical instrument, a small member of the lute family, teardrop shaped, with four to six courses of gut strings and pitched in the treble range. Considered a French instrument, with much of the surviving music coming from France, it was used across "Northern Europe" including Germany and Scotland. Although it went out of style, the French instrument has been revived for use in classical music. The instrument's most commonly played relatives today are members of the mandolin family and the bandurria.

The mandore arrived in France from Spain, and was considered a new instrument in French music books from the 1580s, but can be seen as a development of the gittern. In Spain the mandore was called vandola. Musicologist James Tyler said that the Spanish bandurria with three strings was the mandore, although it had four strings when it arrived in France. In its Spanish form the bandurria may have resembled the rebec.