Your favorite non-guitar fretted stringed instrument?

[Tom Karol]

Mine would be my Octave Mandolin.
What about you?

[randal]

For frets it would have to be the mandolin family - due to the variety. I'm particularly fond of the larger citterns/bouzoukis and what have you.

But I really don't play frets anymore, other than gtr. I'm playing cello and oud - in addition to my compulsion for nordic fiddle.

[Gilpy]

I really enjoy my baglama saz. It's just an inexpensive one but it sounds and plays great. It's pretty easy to get around on if you already play guitar. Mine came with the traditional friction tuning pegs, but that was driving me crazy so I made a new headstock. Much better!
I would love to get an oud!

[randal]

Love saz. The string tension is so low that even crappy friction tuners function well. But I'm used to friction/low tech - from flamenco guitar to harp to my 9-string fiddle

I you don't like friction pegs then an oud would keep you awake at night. You could go with one with the guitar tuners, and that's fine for getting into it, but the balance and resonance afforded by the supremely designed oud is special. Ouds are hard enough to hold and use proper ergonomics with - the extra weight of metal tuners are more impediment.

[Gilpy]

Yeah, it’s the ergonomics of the oud that are daunting to me, but what a lovely sound!
The friction pegs on my cheapo saz were impossible. I’m sure that would be less of a problem on a better-made instrument

[mr. beaumont]

Tres Cubano! I really want one.

[randal]

I want a dilruba...and a nyckelharpa

I was looking at a dilruba in a shop for 5 years, talking myself out of it each time - at 55 I didn't want to start a deep dive into Indian classical music. I listen to it all the time - it's perhaps my favorite music. And when I got my hardanger fiddle I said, a-ha! - now you are not going to get that dilruba, end of story.

I rationalize it by saying, c'mon my ancestors were from scandanavia - i'm from the north country, you got to play what's in the dna. But, this does nothing to explain my love of jazz and afro-latin stuff. Anyway, playing cello keeps it real for me.

(I dig zithers, harps and all paraphenalia - i studied trad chinese guzheng for a few years - deep stuff, bunch of gaelic stuff, the old trad, maqam, al andalus...)

[JazzPadd]

Another Turkish saz lover here, and I’d add the Iranian tar and setar as well. But my favorite at the moment is the Godin Multi Oud in Iraqi tuning. The neck feels close enough to my old school oud and with a bit of EQ and delay the sound gets me there. Plus, tuning is a snap. But agreed, nothing beats the big bowl wooden tones of real oud.

[sgosnell]

5-string electric mandolin, or mandola, either works.

[randal]

One more and i'll quit yakking - I regret selling all the pedal steels i had (of course, this is not non-guitar, but hey at least it has frets ..) I'm not even a country player, but the instrument is fantastic. I was copping Jerry licks when I was playing - high, lonesome soaked in reverb . . . these days I'm sure it'd be more like Susan Alcorn.

[John A.]

To play? I like uke-family instruments (I have a guitelele and a U-bass, and my wife has a uke). Eons ago, I tried a viola da gamba, and that was cool, but I never spent any real time with one. Learning mandolin is on the list of things to do when I have time.

To hear? I'd have to say sitar is my favorite. I like Gittlers and Chapman Sticks, too. And (dare I say it?) banjos.

[rpjazzguitar]

Does bass guitar count?

If not, I like the way a lute sounds.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

To listen to? Sitar

[JFranck]

first the viola da gamba, but I always wanted to try an arpegionne

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

first the viola da gamba, but I always wanted to try an arpegionne

I get that confused with the baryton.

[dot75]

Charango...the one on the left was made for me, the other I bought from the Charangero in Rumillajta, no longer legal to save the armadillos.

[Litterick]

[Woody Sound]

Does pedal steel count?

[randal]

Charango...

Have you tried ronroco? It's the 'viola' of the charango family - nice voice.

I also love sarod, though I don't seek to acquire one - I emulate with oud; the timbre is quite different of course, but many of the same technical features of the playing style can be effectively emulated, and raga has some similarity with taqsim..

You theorbo, gamba, baryton and arpeggionne aficionados - are you folks into the early music idiom? I find myself getting drawn down that rabbit hole - although not particularly in the 'Western' tradition sense. These old instruments with such evocative voices - often with sympathetic strings or special features providing exotic (to our modern ears) timbres, textures, resonances, harmonics...all lost to the sea of modern orchestral sound...music, and our expectation of it, was much different 'back then.'

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

You theorbo, gamba, baryton and arpeggionne aficionados - are you folks into the early music idiom? I find myself getting drawn down that hole (although not particularly in the 'Western' tradition sense). These old instruments with such evocative voices - often with sympathetic strings or special features providing exotic (to our modern ears) timbres, textures, resonances, harmonics...music, and our expectation of it, was much different 'back then.'

A consort of viols is a bittersweet sound. I love it!

[randal]

...And (dare I say it?) banjos.

I went through a big, big banjo phase. It does have such rich history in the Americas. I actually like a plectrum banjo as a jazz instrument - not so much a 'whack-a-doo' approach but as a solo jazz voice. I was transcribing Monk for plectrum before I got on to something else..

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I went through a big, big banjo phase. It does have such rich history in the Americas. I actually like a plectrum banjo as a jazz instrument - not so much a 'whack-a-doo' approach but as a solo jazz voice. I was transcribing Monk for plectrum before I got on to something else..

A brief appearance of banjo (around 5:00) played by McLaughlin (!)

Wha?!

[randal]

Can't be denied his carnatic approach - even on the git-jo!

[DawgBone]

Does pedal steel count?

Yes, it counts.

[Jimmy Smith]

I like big fat but not unplayable basses.