Arrow G-Style Mandolin

Tim Connell demonstrates the mandolin he uses for his varied repertoire.

Portland, Oregon-based mandolinist Tim Connell is a busy instrumentalist with a varied repertoire. Regarded as one of North America’s finest players of Brazilian choro music on the mandolin, he is also at home playing swing, classical, or fiddle tunes. Tim plays all of these diverse styles on a single Arrow G-Style mandolin.

Located in Mosier, Oregon, luthier Paul Lestock builds mandolin-family instruments and guitars under the Arrow brand. The G-Style features an original, somewhat Art Deco-inspired shape, which looks modern without losing faint traces of a traditional F-Style design. Tim’s instrument is constructed with a spruce top, native Pacific Northwest myrtle wood back and sides, a maple neck, and ebony fingerboard. Tim uses a Tone-Gard attached to the instrument’s back, and he feels that it improves the sound, especially when playing standing up. He also has a McClung armrest installed on the instrument. For amplification, he uses a Schertler DYN pickup on the mandolin, which is permanently installed, using a ¼-inch jack in place of the pickup’s standard XLR connector.

In this video, Tim discusses how the instrument’s rich tone and deep, ringing G-string work well for both his ensemble and solo work, and he plays Ernesto Nazareth’s choro “Odeon” and Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Prelude” (BWV 1007).

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