![lyon healy mandolin lyon healy mandolin](https://images.reverb.com/image/upload/s--8MYreZoR--/t_card-square/v1637954894/tjmaa0cliozhjhqj4m42.jpg)
The mandolin enabled amateurs to enjoy the rhythms of another fad of that decade – ragtime. There was more to the popularity of the mandolin than the fun that the fad attracted with such a strange-looking instrument. A mandolin quartet performed at a Baptist church to raise money to buy an organ. The eighth grade club performed for Arbor Day in 1906. They even performed at the Methodist Church’s Anti-Cigarette League event. The high school club played often at the Wheeler and was featured in the 1908 Memorial Day Program of the Presbyterian Church. There was also an eighth-grade club and one at St. The high school club was the most popular. Several “older” Aspen musicians mastered the instrument and played at community musical events, usually in combination with piano and violin. A glee club from Colorado University performed often in Aspen.
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From around 1905 through 1910 everyone wanted to play the mandolin, especially teens that learned to play in the Aspen High School Mandolin Club.Ĭollege glee clubs often featured accompaniment from mandolins. Applying a top-curved violin-style body, the Gibson Company created the F-hole mandolin, known as the F5, the mandolin in its final iteration.Ī couple of generations before Bill Monroe, the mandolin entered a brief period of popularity, one that took Aspen by storm. Monroe’s musical background met an improved instrument. The A style was the top of the line, beautifully made with a scroll headstock and all models had a patented design engraved tailpiece. Their arch top mandolins came in 3 models, the A style, B style and C style. No reputable bluegrass band has entertained without a “mando” player since Bill Monroe’s musicianship the late 1940s. Lyon and Healy/Washburn on the other hand made smaller numbers of arch top mandolins, as well as bowl back mandolins. Most would recognize a mandolin’s crisp upper-octave play in bluegrass music. They revitalized the instrument’s popularity by employing it in various genres of music. Two decades later, ownership passed to me, only to repeat cycles of unplayed display and storage.Īspen’s current mandolin aficionados have their favorites: Sam Bush, David Grisman and Chris Thile. By the time I was 10, the mandolin was relegated to the back of a closet.
![lyon healy mandolin lyon healy mandolin](https://acousticmusic.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Lyon-M-1544-BF.jpg)
It belonged to her uncle, Bill Sheehan, a member of the Aspen High School Mandolin Club of the early 1900s. Its graceful curves and decorations inlaid in alternating wood strips sat atop my mother’s piano all through my childhood. My favorite family heirloom is a bowl-back mandolin made by Lyon and Healy of Chicago. Courtesy Aspen Historical SocietyThe Aspen High School mandolin club performed at most local events during the ragtime rage.