Graham's mandolin treatise in AL

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Mark McLean
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Graham's mandolin treatise in AL

Post by Mark McLean » Mon Feb 05, 2018 10:53 pm

I spent the last weekend enjoying the latest edition of American Lutherie - always a good read, but particularly so this time. If you haven't seen it you might be interested to know that it features a really scholarly outline of the history of the mandolin written by Graham McDonald. Fourteen pages of great writing which is both erudite and entertaining; plus dozens of fascinating illustrations. It is a great outline Graham - and makes me look forward to getting the whole book. Nice work!
In this edition of AL that is immediately followed by a bio-piece on Graham Caldersmith. So the Americans are really getting a good dose of Aussie lutherie expertise at the moment - but there is a danger that they might think everybody here is called Graham (Graham = the new Bruce).

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graham mcdonald
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Re: Graham's mandolin treatise in AL

Post by graham mcdonald » Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:52 pm

Thank you for the kind words. It was written as a lecture I was due to present at last year’s GAL convention, but family illness meant I had to pull out a couple of weeks before the convention. It was written for a spoken presentation as a very condensed version of my mandolin history with some of the oddities and more unusual instruments. If anyone here is not a GAL member they should be. I can’t imagine you will not get at least one idea from four issues of American Lutherie that pays for your annual subscription.

It was great to see Graham C getting another writeup. He is one of the most important and influential guitar makers this country has produced. His work on guitar acoustics has informed a couple of generations of classical guitar builders and he is delightfully generous with his knowledge.

Cheers
Graham McDonald
http://www.mcdonaldstrings.com

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