The Birth of the American 12-string Guitar
harpguitars.net37 points by bilegeek 3 hours ago
37 points by bilegeek 3 hours ago
I'm probably preaching to the choir in a story about guitars, but if you're looking for some good 12-string music, Leo Kottke's 6 and 12 String Guitar is a good start.
If you haven't heard (or seen) Michael Hedges play a harp guitar, there's some background and links to videos here:
The author is Gregg Miner, and Gregg has an extensive library of harp guitar music. A long time ago I met Gregg when one of my friends Brad Hoyt (a keyboard and harp guitarist as well) hosted a harp guitar convention here in Indianapolis, and I got recruited to help. Gregg and the rest of the artists that were there were extremely approachable, and most of the crowd were musicians (some pretty famous ones, too) checking out one of the more interesting variations of the guitar... and what you could do with one. Fun times.
12 strings is one thing, but how about microtonal? That's instead of adding strings, you add frets!
If you haven't heard them yet, you're in for a wild ride: https://www.youtube.com/@AnginePoitrine
That's the first time I've heard microtonal work in a rock setting. Pretty good!
I see your added frets, and raise "add frets on the fly using Lego":
> That's the first time I've heard microtonal work in a rock setting. Pretty good!
Really? I highly recommend Flying Microtonal Banana.
Why frets? Orchestral strings don’t use frets.
For plucked instruments, besides ease of use, it adds clarity and sustain. Orchestra AFAIK only has Pizzicato where that would matter.
Frets make chords possible.
You only have to put your finger somewhere in between two frets to get a particular note, so you can play more than the tiny handful of chords that can be played on something like a violin.
There are non-fretted guitars but they are rare, and I think early banjos were not fretted.
Frets make chords easier
It makes hard chords easy, and impossible chords possible (if not easy). Most barre chords, for example.
> Frets make chords possible.
What do you think double-stops are?
There are those who say it isn't a chord until you have 3 notes. I'm going to skip the complex music theory behind the arguments (I haven't studied them enough to understand much less form an opinion).
Of course in most music contexts there is more than one instrument playing and so the others can fill in the missing note making a full chord. Only a "one-man-band" really feels the loss.
Whimpy-ass chords. You need three or more notes for a serious(tm) chord.
What's the difference in sustain time between a cello played pizzicato and a plucked guitar string?
A bit spotty, but alright; meanwhile the Italian instrument makers said guitar-harp? Hold our expressos, this'll take some discipline:
What I love about links like this is that we see information being shared just for the love of it. This person has done a lot of work simply to share knowledge with the world about something they are passionate about. This is what great about the internet and is easily lost amongst all the commercial content.