First of all, thanks for all the great answers to my capo question. I’ve been watching a lot of performances live from the Cavern Club which feature mostly solo musicians with an acoustic guitar.
Is it difficult for someone to learn a 12 string guitar? Let’s assume you’re a very capable player but not at musical genius level.
If you can play a 6, you can play a 12. I’ve been playing one for 35 years, and I’m competent but that’s it.
Yeah, this. It doesn’t really feel much different than playing a 6 string. You have to be a bit more careful when you are picking “individual” strings so that you pick the two strings you want and none of the ones that you don’t want, but you get used to that pretty quickly. For strumming chords, there is very little difference at all.
If you are a capable player, you’ll be able to play a 12 string as soon as you pick it up and start playing. No biggie.
On a 12-string guitar, the strings come in 6 pairs that correspond to the 6 strings on a regular guitar. The lower four pairs are tuned an octave apart. Each of the top two pairs are tuned to the same note. Each pair is a little closer to each other than to the next pair. You don’t really play each string individually, you play each pair as you would a single string on a six-string.
So if you play a 6-string guitar, you can pick up a 12-string and you will hardly even notice the difference. It might take a little while to get accustomed to how the pick feels on 12 strings but you are using all the same fingerings, etc.
You should be fine. Ever play a classical nylon string? The neck width is similar. Playing leads or riffs sounds strange with the strings doubled, though.
My sister had an Ibanez 12 and over time, the tension from the strings warped the neck until it was unplayable. So don’t buy the cheapest model. I gave her mine, an Oscar Schmidt, since I wasn’t playing it much. I haven’t talked to her in awhile; I wonder if it held up any better.
PS Tension? I had a six string Epiphone that I really liked, but one day it fell over. The way the headstock angles back makes it vulnerable to breaking, as I learned that day. It was the oddest clang sound. I don’t think I’d buy another, definitely not a 12.
This guy makes it look pretty easy.
If your left hand has good precision you’ll be fine. Just get one with real low/easy action. If it doesn’t play easier than your six-string, it will just lie there and you won’t play it.
Segovia told a joke about a woman who played the lute for fifty years. She spent forty years tuning it.
IME that’s the hardest thing about a 12-string.
I opened up this thread just to say that. Tuning is tough, especially when you have a pair of strings that don’t sound right… is the ‘lower’ string of the pair sharp, or is it the other one?
Now, if you can do that with electronic help, go for it…
I haven’t owned a 12 string for over 20 years, but don’t remember the tuning to be too bad. I just tuned the normal 6 and then the remaining 6 to their pairs.
That said, I have always had problems with tuning on guitars, I am very aware of intonation issues.
As for playing one? It’s easy enough, slightly ungainly compared to a six string.
I was going to make the tuning joke, too.
Some 12-string players tune the guitar down a step or half step to get around the tension issues. They use a capo if they’re playing with a group.
I like this 12-string playing:
12 string acoustics aren’t tough to tune, just time consuming. 12 string electrics though, are never in tune. You can hear every wrong overtone and spend forever fruitlessly tuning.
Kottke is, of course, brilliant.
I actually came into this thread to post about exactly what he’s doing.
There isn’t that much difference between a 12-string and a 6-string as far as the left hand is concerned.
But for the right hand – flatpicking a 12-string is one thing, but fingerpicking a 12-string is another thing altogether. The strings are just so damned closed together…
Of course, I’m a mediocre amateur guitar player and it’s all hard for me.
I finally invested in a nice Taylor 12-string and love it but there are some differences. I’ve found tuning will depend on the guitar but haven’t had any problems. You’ll need slightly bigger calluses and finger strength than an electric or a 6-string acoustic.
It’s difficult to pull off any significant bends but you can substitute glides if really needed.
I had thought that was kind of the point of a 12-string guitar – that it can evoke a rich tone like two players playing together. I know it was recorded on acoustic instuments … but something like Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind” – recorded in the studio with two players on six-strings, but can sound great on a single 12-string.
A good electric example is the opening of Bon Jovi’s “Dead or Alive”.
Even if a twelve string is perfectly perfectly (perfectly!) in tune, it will still sound “bigger” for two reasons:
The lowest three or four strings are paired with an octave string so the bass strings get that bigger, jangly “Ticket To Ride opening” sound.
The top two or three strings are doubled at unison pitch. Even perfectly in tune, you don’t (and can’t possibly) strike the strings at the same moment with the same force, so each unison string will vibrate in a slightly different manner, both by the cycle of the waveform and the intensity, even though they’re the same pitch. Also each of the unison strings also has a slightly different tension; they’re the same gauge but connect to the tuner via different lengths on that impossibly tall 12-string headstock, which also contributes to each string vibrating differently (though this effect is probably quite subtle).
A 12 sting guitar isn’t easy to play, even if you can play a 6. I picked one up and struggled at first, and im decent at the 6 string. The addition of an extra string requires more finger strength and some accuracy. But after a bit of practice it came along just fine.
My problem is economic (no, not the cost of six extra strings…).
But the 12-string is such a unique sound that I’d never buy one as my only guitar, so I’d have to have a whole room full of guitars.
My first would be an acoustic. And my second would be an electric (Les Paul or a Strat? Please?), and my third a classical, and for my fourth I’d love a tenor guitar. Only THEN would I add a 12-string to my stable, since I’d obviously won the lottery by then…