I would soooo love to get that Bass VI. But I’m broker than broke right now, even at that very nice price point. Ugh.
Tell me about it! This 10-string alto guitar and this 8-string guitar have been in at The Fret for about a month now. Can’t justify either purchase, and I don’t have the lettuce to just buy one right now, even though if/when I do get the cash to spare and the gigs to justify it, they’ll undoubtedly be gone - extra string classical guitars don’t come around that often.
Wow, those look intimidating as heck. What does one play on one of those?
It looks like I’d have to fret it with my face ;).
Well, in jazz, Bucky Pizzarelli, John Pizzarelli, George Van Eps and Howard Alden have all played 7-stringed instruments with an extra low string (Usually either an ‘A’ or a ‘B’). Lenny Breau liked his 7-string to have an extra high string, which he tuned to an ‘A’. Napoléon Coste played a 7-string classical with a ‘floating’ D string on the bottom. More recently, Narciso Yepes was a strong advocate of a 10-string classical.
Coste deserves a special mention - many of his compositions involve using that open low ‘D’ string, which leaves the modern 6-string player with a dilemma - tune to a drop ‘D’, and suffer the awkward stretch that his voicings demand every time you have to play something over a low ‘G’? Or, leave the guitar in standard tuning, and take the ‘D’ up the octave? Neither solution is very satisfying, especially seeing Coste often has a bass line that descends stepwise to that low ‘D’.
Yepes started out using it to transcribe 15th century lute and vihuela music, but came to use the 10 string exclusively.
So if one of those instruments magically ended up in my hands, the first thing I’d do is figure out if I could find a string strong enough for a high ‘A’ that wouldn’t pull too hard on the bridge. That’s a delicate balance, and might not work out. It would mean that you’d gain an extra fourth on top, and you’d be able to barre chords up to having a high F# in the barre. (Barring above the 9th fret gets pretty awkward on a classical…) On the 8-string, I’d put a .052 or a .054 on the bottom which could be tuned as low as an ‘A’, but as high as a ‘D’. With that 10-string, I’m less certain - the 600 mm scale length is pretty short for going for much of a low extension. Still, the interesting possibility exists for having open strings with different lower end notes. Even if all you did was to go EFGABDGBEA, you’ve hugely extended what you can do with sustained bass notes. And it’s a moment’s work to shift any of those low strings by a semitone, as the key or the piece requires.
The huge advantage for me of that 8-string would be that I could play the rep that I sing with just one guitar - right now, I end up bringing two guitars, which is a bit of a schlep.
I can’t see picking one up at the moment - I have a very good working relationship with the luthier who has built my two guitars and I don’t want to screw that up by buying something new and selling his instruments. But that doesn’t stop me from jonesing a bit when I see those and thinking “Hmm, maybe I wouldn’t need the partial capo to do the F# drone in that passage in ‘Flower Arranger’, and I could play the bass notes in ‘O Death’ as they’re written instead of up the octave. Hey, I wonder if ‘The Old Lute’ would be any easier with some extra open bass strings.”
Smoke on the Water?
Here’s a full recital of Yepes’ - sadly, Smoke on the Water didn’t feature.
Och, shazbot!! The hamsters ate the other thing I wanted to say - if one wants to play in a guitar ensemble, guitar duo or guitar quartet, instruments like these can really help extend the range of what the group can do. If you’re playing 4th, having extra bass strings is a good idea. If you’re playing 1st, you may want an extra high string, or a requinto from time to time.
Nice Ministre! Wow. I only watched the first piece so far in that video, about 10 1/2 minutes (of 106 minutes, wow), and it is just fascinating to see someone work an instrument like that. I can’t even imagine try to play a piece of that sort.
That first piece (and I am not at all familiar with the material) ambled along pleasantly for a while then - for me - really took off 3:38, and I loved that whole section. The bit at 4:30 and again at 4:52ish looked especially challenging. And the finish from 9:22 - 10:25 was by far the best and most technical (playing-wise IMO) part. Wonderful finish to that piece, just superb! Dude can trill.
Thanks for sharing! I will watch the rest this evening or tomorrow morning, it looks like great stuff.
And why are there seats behind the performer on the same stage that are partly filled? We see someone leave during the first piece.
Still working on this vid, but 15:25 - 17:25 should make an angel weep. Wow.
Very Bach-y and Lute-sounding; wonderful. Hmm, after seeing his dexterity, compared to him, it sounds like I have been using my face to fret 
I just finished those editing notes and sent them to the sound engineer - that makes me about 5 1/2 weeks behind.
And it’s amazing how different each piece was to edit. Here’s the biggest pair of contrasts -
versus
Now why couldn’t I just get it right in one take every frikken’ time?
A friend of mine has written a book that has long been bottled up inside him. It’s a compendium of knowledge about gear. It’s Kindle only at the moment, but well worth the low price. I would recommend it even if I didn’t know the author.
Sure, I’ll pop $3 and take a look-see.
Status: rewiring Strat with GFS '59 “texas” premium set onto new pickguard so I can return to the stock setup easily. Sadly my Egnater is at the manufacturer; I’d be most interested to hear what the new pickups will sound like through it, but my Blues Jr is capable enough for now.
Goddammit, where is my spool of solder? KHAAAAAN! Shit. I guess the Strat stays stock until tomorrow when I can get over to Radio Shack.
CookingWithGas, I’ve already picked up some stuff I didn’t know about Strat trem setup from your friend’s book. It looks pretty handy.
Are you going to go all out with new pots, knobs, caps, and switch for the new set up? When I’ve done mods like this, I use wire nuts to make the connections from the output jack to the rest of the electronics mounted on the pickguard. Though the mod I usually did was from 3 single coils to 2 humbuckers.
Yeah, I’m doing a complete drop-in pickguard. I wasn’t going to do wire nuts but that’s a good notion. The goal is to change out the strat pickguard in less than 10 minutes: a string change plus unscrewing/rescrewing the pickguard = poof! new strat setup, new pickups, pots, the works.
Hmm; interesting. May have to check that out - thanks for the heads up.
Man, if I had a bit of time available, I would enjoy writing a guitar book. Probably more focused on how to go through the process of finding a good guitar or something like that…
Exactly! If you use wire nuts, you don’t even have to wait for your soldering iron to get hot.