KR Strings

Check out my newest design! https://www.mandolincafe.com//754-KR-Strings-Introduces-th

Mahalo nui Peghead Nation!!

As difficult as the last year has been, I know many of us under isolation and with a bit more time on our hands have finally gotten around to ideas that have been percolating for years. The design of this instrument has been kicking around in the back of my mind for a few decades. Finally working over the last year with my violin making partner Yam Uri Raz we got it off of the drawing board and into our hands and we are excited to share it with the Mandolin Cafe community! Tw...o decades ago I was lucky to spend several years in Oklahoma, religiously hanging around Byron Berline’s fiddle shop in Guthrie, touring the midwest playing mando in a bluegrass band and backing up lots of great Texas Style contest fiddlers on rhythm guitar. When we were on the road playing backwoods little mom and pop festivals it was as common to come across folks that had played with Bill Monroe as it was to find relatives and band members of Bob Wills Texas Playboys, and in the repertoire of the campground sessions you got to hear this great mix of musical styles. These players didn’t flinch going from straight ahead driving Bluegrass to the swing of a Benny Thomasson or Texas Shorty arrangement of fiddle tunes like Dusty Miller or Sally Good’n. That Great Plains Texas style of fiddling to me combined everything I loved in American music, and as a mandolin player I found myself trying to imitate the acrobatic melodic fiddle sound on eight plucked strings. I began imagining a new instrument that a hero like Tiny Moore would have dug if he ever found himself sitting on the back of a pickup in one of these jam sessions, without a battery powered amp for his Fender Mandocaster. A few years later I got to hang and play with fiddle maestro Paul Anastasio at a NAMM show in Anaheim California, and he mentioned that when teaching swing fiddle intensive workshops he liked to tune up soprano ukuleles in fifths to teach chord theory to his students (Soprano uke is pretty much exactly the same scale as mandolin). (Continued in comments) #mandolindo #mandolincafe #fourstrings #lessisfour #mandolin

A new ‘ukulele back for a talented young musician who attended our ‘ukulele Ho’oponopono. I am blessed and thankful to be able to go to the source when parts and peices are needed, mahalo nui @kamakahawaii your work and support through the years has been an inspiration. Look forward to hearing this Lili’u model in action! #lutheology #hawaiianmusic #ukulele #restoration @yamviolins #oldisnew #acousticmusic #shapearoundthesound

Something new coming soon.... #mandolindo #lutheology #stringnova #luthier #mandalorian #mandolincafe

https://youtu.be/0Zs7TEmmLbY