Electric mando-cello
Alternate name(s)
- Mandolin
- Mando-cello
- Solid-body electric mandocello
- Hollow-body electric mandocello
- Electric (electromagnetic-acoustic) mandocello
Maker
Vivi-Tone Company
Date1932-1933 ca.
Place MadeKalamazoo, Michigan, United States, North America
ModelMandocello
Serial No.9
SignedLight blue paper label with single-line border and cut corners, affixed to top under tailpiece, the model and serial number written in black ink: Vivi Tone Mando Cello / PATENT APPLIED FOR / No. 9 / Manufactured By / Vivi Tone Company / Kalamazoo, Michigan Spray painted in black ink on head: ViVi / ▲Tone
Stamped in black ink on underside of pickup: VIVI-TONE COMPANY / 71 West 23rd Street, Suite 1520 / (Masonic Hall) New York City / GRamercy 5-2879 [sic]
MarkingsWritten in pencil on underside of pickup: #9 / old number
Written in pencil on inside of lower bass rib and on lower rib lining: XXX
Potentiometer die-stamped on top: ELECTRAD
Potentiometer stamped in black ink on side, the text enclosed in a box: ELECTRAD / [illeg.] OHM
DescriptionThe Vivi-Tone mandocello, electric guitar (NMM 10811), and mandola (NMM 10809), belonged to Dennis E. Hartnett (1870-1949), a music teacher who first opened the Harnett National Music Studios in Manhattan in 1898, offering guitar, mandolin, and banjo instruction. Like many teachers and professional performers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Hartnett combined his musical activities with instrument selling. He developed the Hartnett System of music instruction, based on the idea of dividing music into separate studies of time, pitch, and technique, focusing the student's attention on each in turn. The Hartnett System achieved great popularity, and Hartnett became a leading Gibson agent, often appearing in Gibson catalogs of the 1910s. As a Gibson dealer, Hartnett would have been familiar with Lloyd Loar's performing and researching activities. He also developed a personal relationship with Lewis Williams, co-founder of the Vivi-Tone Company, who wrote a letter of endorsement for the Hartnett System in 1932.
Hartnett was himself an inventor, creating a device he called a "Developer," patented in 1912 (U. S. Pat. 1,047,217), which suppressed the audible sound of a stringed instrument, allowing the student to focus on "the elements time and technic" rather than "tune." The mute also permitted the student to practice without disturbing others. Hartnett patented another mute in 1916 (U. S. Pat. 1,177,184); it offered flexibility in the level of sound suppression. Examples of these devices, along with original Vivi-Tone and Gibson strings, Gibson catalogs, celluloid D. E. Hartnett labels (to be added to the instruments he sold), music, engraved copper plates for printing music, and archival materials, comprise the Dennis Hartnett Archive at the NMM, donated in 2005 by Dennis J. Hartnett, Hartnett's great-nephew.
Upon his death, Dennis E. Hartnett bequeathed his 148-acre estate in Southampton, Massachusetts, to the New England Forestry Foundation. The Hartnett-Manhan Memorial Forest, as it is now known, is the site of a colonial lead mine that may have been a source of lead for bullets in the Revolutionary War. While addressing the Northampton Historical Society in 1940, Hartnett mentioned that he was approached by several parties about reopening the mines to capitalize on wartime demand for lead, but declined involvement unless "it becomes evident that these mines can contribute in any way towards helping our country at this crucial hour of its history." This never proved to be the case, and Hartnett's land has been preserved for the benefit of the public as a forest and historical site.
Electric (magneto-acoustic) mandocello with guitar-shaped body. Bridge fit in to slot in top, resting (over a white and black celluloid platform made from binding material) on a paramagnetic metal bar-armature, the vibration of which varies the intensity of the magnetic field between two pole pieces (each attached to opposite polar ends of a U-shaped permanent magnet), inducing an electric current in a wire coil-winding surrounding one of the pole pieces. The bar-armature is divided into two sections with unfriendly resonances (pitched at E and C#) using either a notch or a dividing block to prevent its own natural frequency vibrations from overwhelming other frequencies. Through differing divisions of the bar-armature, its total length, its thickness and width, and stiffness or elasticity, it is possible for the manufacturer to pre-determine the tonal qualities of the instrument. The electrical output of the magneto-acoustic unit is sufficient for use with headphones for practice, or it can be fed into an amplified loud-speaker
Stringing: eight steel strings
Soundboard: one-piece mahogany plywood; black spray-painted f-holes and soundhole trim
Back: one-piece three-ply birch plywood; hole in back for access to screw adjustment on pickup
Ribs: birch, constructed from multiple pieces, each 6.4 mm thick, the grain running perpendicular to plane of top and back; panel on treble side for access to pickup unit; band saw marks visible on inside of ribs
Head: mahogany veneered with white celluloid on both faces
Neck: mahogany; integral with head; white celluloid stripe
Heel cap: ebony
Binding: white celluloid; black and white celluloid strips on inside edge of binding
Fingerboard: ebony bound in white celluloid with scalloped lower end; 24 frets under A and D, 21 nickel-silver frets under G and C; single abalone dots behind 5th, 7th, 9th, 10th (slightly larger), and 15th frets; double mother-of-pearl dots behind 12th fret
Nut: bone
Bridge: mahogany with two layers of binding and one extra layer of plain white celluloid glued to feet; every other set of string notches offset (compensated)
Tailpiece: cast aluminum with two openings and decorative outline, screwed to lower rib with three nickel-plated steel dome-headed screws
Pegs: six nickel-plated steel worm-gear machine tuners with white ivoroid convex heads and plates with engraved lines around the edges
Endpin: black bakelite; extends through tailpiece
Cord: covered with brown cloth; ends in two metal tips
Soundhole: oval opening in top where bridge feet rest on bar-armature
Pick guard: imitation tortoise shell plastic raised on wood brace affixed to top with two steel dome-headed screws
Lacquer: clear with prominent craquelure
Linings: mahogany
Braces: heavy mahogany brace running through center of instrument
DimensionsTotal mandocello length: 988 mm (38-29/32″)
Back length: 469 mm (18-1/2″)
Upper bout width: 245 mm (9-21/32″)
Waist width: 190 mm (7-1/2″)
Lower bout width: 335 mm (13-3/16″)
Rib height (including edging) at heel: 66 mm (2-19/32″)
Rib height, at waist: 66 mm (2-19/32″)
Rib height, at end block: 66 mm (2-19/32″)
Head length: 180 mm (7-3/32″)
Head width, top: 70 mm (2-3/4″)
Head width, bottom: 62 mm (2-7/16″)
Neck length (nut to ribs): 345 mm (13-19/32″)
Neck width, nut: 42 mm (1-21/32″)
Neck width, heel: 53 mm (2-3/32″)
Soundhole height: 10 mm (13/32”)
Soundhole width: 98 mm (3-27/32″)
Vibrating string length (nut to bridge edge): A: 625 mm (25-3/8″); C: 631 mm (25-5/8″)
ProvenanceUsed by Dennis Hartnett, teacher, Gibson dealer, Vivi Tone representative, and performer in New York
Published ReferencesArian Sheets, “Lloyd Loar’s Other Instruments…Four Rarities for the Workshop of an Electroacoustic Pioneer” National Music Museum Newsletter, Vol. 32, No. 1, (February 2005), pp. 1-3.
Credit LineArne B. and Jeanne F. Larson Fund, 2004
Object number10810
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