Child-sized mandolins
Phil and Carol Good-Elliott
is now producing child-sized and small-bodied mandolins for children and
backpacking . We purchased a KidMo 4-string short scale, narrow neck
mandolin for our son recently. This will make an excellent starter for him.
It's *not* a toy - has very good sound for it's size and price (very
affordable and much cheaper than our child damaging my own instrument). The
string gauge is very light and easy to finger. The short scale and narrow
neck make it easy for small fingers (though a bit challenging for adult
fingers). The MiniMo 8 string mandolin has full scale length, but narrow
neck. I haven't seen one of those yet. Mid-Mo doesn't have either listed on
their website yet.
Ken Cartwright <ke...@teleport.com> contacted Mid-Missouri about constructing
child-sized instruments after some I started asking around about such
instruments on the madolincafe.com site. You can write to him for more info
or to purchase one if interested. He wrote a nice review of them in the
latest issue of Mandolin Magazine <http://www.mandolinmagazine.com/>.
We purchased ours through Elderly Instruments with help from Cynthia in
purchasing. She contacted Mid-Mo after Ken got the ball rolling. You can see
the instrument we bought at
http://www.elderly.com/new_instruments/items/MIDKID4.htm
Also, Sound To Earth (STE), a.k.a. "Weber" <http://soundtoearth.com/ or
s...@avicom.net>, is about to start production of a small bodied mandolin
that will be great for children and backpacker. I'm pretty sure it will be
called the "Sweet Pea". I believe they intend to officially debut it at NAMM
next weekend. I know that Vern Brekke was working on it's design and that it
will be a very well-crafted instrument.
I have no financial interest in any of this. I am very excited about these
instruments being produced and available to children (backpackers, too). A
friend of ours who teaches classical violin to children saw the KidMo
recently and thought it would make a good introductory instrument for young
violinists, too, considering the fingering is the same for violin and
mandolin. I am interested in promoting folk-music and dance to people of all
ages, and if this is a way to get more children exposed/interested in
"old-time" music, great!
--
Phil Good-Elliott
"Life is a child playing (mandolin) around your feet, a (mandolin) you hold
(lightly) in your grip, a bench you sit down upon in the evening, in your
garden (to play music with your child)." - apologies to Jean Anouilh
Phil and Carol Good-Elliott
Phi...@mac.com wrote on 7/16/01 10:09am:
> Also, Sound To Earth (STE), a.k.a. "Weber" <http://soundtoearth.com/ or
> s...@avicom.net>, is about to start production of a small bodied mandolin
> that will be great for children and backpacker. I'm pretty sure it will be
> called the "Sweet Pea". I believe they intend to officially debut it at NAMM
> next weekend. I know that Vern Brekke was working on it's design and that it
> will be a very well-crafted instrument.
This just in from Paula Jean Lewis:
> The Sweet Pea was very well received at the Kaufman Camp. It will retail at
> $250, excluding shipping, with gig bag, strap, chord book, pic, and cloth.
-Phil