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The tenor guitar is a slightly smaller, four-string version of the steel-string acoustic guitar or electric guitar. The instrument (in its acoustic form) was developed so that players of the four-string tenor banjo could double on the guitar. Later, solid-body electric models were also produced. A steel string acoustic guitar is a modern form of guitar descended from the classical guitar, but strung with steel strings for a brighter, louder sound. ...
An electric guitar An electric guitar is a type of guitar that uses pickups to convert the vibration of its steel-cored strings into electrical current, which is then amplified. ...
The banjo is a string instrument, derived from banjar, an African string instrument. ...
Construction Tenor guitars are four stringed instruments normally made in the shape of a guitar, or sometimes with a lute-like pear shaped body or, more rarely, with a round banjo-like wooden body. They can be acoustic and/or electric and they can come in the form of flat top, archtop, wood-bodied or metal-bodied resonator or solid-bodied instruments. Tenor guitars normally have a scale length (from bridge to nut) of around 23 inches. In a string instrument, the scale length (often simply but confusingly called the scale) is the sounding length of the strings. ...
History and development Almost all the major guitar makers, such as Gibson, Epiphone, Martin, Gretsch, Guild and National, have manufactured tenor (and plectrum) guitars as production instruments. Makers such as Gibson even used to offer the tenor (or plectrum) models as a custom option for their six string guitar models at no extra charge. Gibson also had a line of tenor guitars under their "budget" brand name of Kalamazoo. Budget tenor guitars by makers, such as Harmony, Regal and Stella, were made in large numbers in the 1950s and 1960s and are still widely available. The Gibson Guitar Corporation, of Nashville, Tennessee, USA, is one of the worlds best-known manufacturers of acoustic and electric guitars. ...
Epiphone Emperor The Epiphone Company is a guitar manufacturer. ...
C.F. Martin & Company (Martin) is a US guitar manufacturer that was established in 1833 by Christian Frederick Martin. ...
Gretsch is a U.S. musical instrument manufacturer currently being distributed by guitar company Fender and drum craft company Kaman. ...
The Guild Guitar Company is a USA-based guitar manufacturer begun in 1952 by Alfred Dronge. ...
National Reso-Phonic Guitars is a manufacturer of resonator guitars and other resonator instruments including mandolins, ukeleles and 12 string guitars. ...
The Harmony Company is an American musical instrument manufacturer that was in its heyday the largest stringed instrument manufacturer in the country. ...
The Regal Musical Instrument Company was established in 1908 in Chicago. ...
Tenor guitars were manufactured continuously by Gibson and Martin from the 1920s until the 1970s. National Instruments also made significant numbers of resonator tenor and plectrum guitars between the 1920s and 1940s, some of which were also used by jazz musicians as a second instrument. Dobro, another company formed by the Dopyera Brothers, as well as National Instruments, also built resonator tenor guitars. For other uses, see Jazz (disambiguation). ...
A modern Gibson Dobro Dobro is a trade name now owned by Gibson Guitar Corporation and used for a particular design of resonator guitar. ...
Tuning Tenor guitars are usually tuned in fifths (usually CGDA, similar to the tenor banjo or the viola), although other tunings are possible, such as "guitar tuning" or "Chicago tuning" (DGBE), "Irish" or "octave mandolin" tuning (GDAE) and various "open" tunings, for slide playing. The banjo is a string instrument, derived from banjar, an African string instrument. ...
The viola (French, alto; German Bratsche) is a bowed string instrument. ...
The octave mandolin is an eight-stringed fretted string instrument tuned an octave below the neopolitan mandolin. ...
Example of a bottleneck, with fingerpicks and resonator guitar. ...
The normal CGDA tuning is very "open" and it gives the instrument unusual voicings from both open and closed chords. The fifths tuning also makes for easy moveable chord shapes. The instrument is equally well suited to both rhythm and lead playing.
Related instruments The plectrum guitar is a close four stringed relative of the tenor guitar with a scale length of 26-27 inches and tunings usually based on the plectrum banjo - CGBD or DGBD. Plectrum guitars are also very suitable for guitar tuning - DGBE - because of their longer scale length but are much less suitable for CGDA tuning because of the high A string. Plectrum guitars were not made in as large numbers as tenor guitars and are now more rare. For other uses, see Banjo (disambiguation) The banjo is a stringed instrument developed by enslaved Africans in the United States, adapted from several African instruments. ...
Plectrum guitars played a similar role for plectrum banjo players in this period as the tenor guitar, but they were less common. One of the best known plectrum guitarists from the Jazz Age was Eddie Condon, who started out on banjo in the 1920s and then switched to a Gibson L7 plectrum guitar in the 1930s and stayed with it all his musical life up to the 1960s. The Jazz Age , 1929 movie poster: A Scathing Indictment of the Bewidered Children of Pleasure. ...
Albert Edwin Condon, better known as Eddie Condon, (16 November 1905–4 August 1973) was a jazz banjoist, guitarist, and bandleader. ...
For other uses, see Banjo (disambiguation) The banjo is a stringed instrument developed by enslaved Africans in the United States, adapted from several African instruments. ...
In 1968 Eddie Peabody, a very well known plectrum banjoist who performed from the 1920s through to 1970, designed a six string, four course, electric guitar-like instrument with a plectrum scale length of 26 inches and plectrum tuning of CGDB. It was called the Banjoline and it was mainly manufactured by Rickenbacker. The Rickenbacker version of the Banjoline was based on their hollow-bodied 360 guitar model and it had two pick ups with a selector switch and two sets of volume and tone controls. Eddie Peabody Eddie Peabody Edwin Ellsworth Peabody - also known as Eddie, little Eddie, King of the Banjo, and Happiness Boy (b. ...
Banjoline by Gretsch Banjoline A special type of electric guitar developed by Eddie Peabody first with Fender Musical Instruments Co. ...
Rickenbacker 330JG Rickenbacker International Corporation, also known as Rickenbacker (pronounced ) [1]), is an electric guitar manufacturer, notable for having invented the first electric guitar during the 1930s. ...
Rickenbacker 330JG Rickenbacker International Corporation, also known as Rickenbacker (pronounced ) [1]), is an electric guitar manufacturer, notable for having invented the first electric guitar during the 1930s. ...
Banjoline by Gretsch Banjoline A special type of electric guitar developed by Eddie Peabody first with Fender Musical Instruments Co. ...
The six strings were grouped into four courses with the C strings doubled as an octave pair, there were two G strings doubled in unison and the D and the B strings were single strings. It also had an Ac'cent tremelo arm. It was available as as the standard model 6005 and the De Luxe model 6006 and it came in three colours Fireglo, Mapleglo and Azureglo. The De Luxe 6006 was double-bound with checkered binding and it also had checkered binding on the headstock.
Due to its doubled strings and electric pick ups, its sound was similar to that of the doubled strings of the twelve string electric guitar that had been made famous by Rickenbacker as played by George Harrison of The Beatles and Roger McGuinn of The Byrds. Eddie Peabody recorded two LPs playing his banjo classics on the Banjoline for the Dot label which still exist today. They are entitled Eddie Plays Smoothies and Eddie Plays More Smoothies. For other persons named George Harrison, see George Harrison (disambiguation). ...
The White Album, see The Beatles (album). ...
James Roger McGuinn (known professionally as Roger McGuinn and born James Joseph McGuinn III on July 13, 1942) is a popular rock American singer-songwriter and guitarist of the 1960s and 1970s. ...
The Byrds (formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1964) were an American rock band. ...
Banjoline by Gretsch Banjoline A special type of electric guitar developed by Eddie Peabody first with Fender Musical Instruments Co. ...
It is reported that versions of the Banjoline were also built by other manufacturers, such as Fender, and possibly even Vega. Vega certainly built at least one tenor scale length solid-bodied two pick up electric guitar with six strings arranged in four courses. Unfortunately, although the Rickenbacker Banjoline was made in quite large numbers, it was not commercially successful. However, it remains a fascinating instrument with a unique sound and a wide range of very interesting tuning possibilities. Banjoline by Gretsch Banjoline A special type of electric guitar developed by Eddie Peabody first with Fender Musical Instruments Co. ...
It has been suggested that Fender Amplifier History be merged into this article or section. ...
Rickenbacker 330JG Rickenbacker International Corporation, also known as Rickenbacker (pronounced ) [1]), is an electric guitar manufacturer, notable for having invented the first electric guitar during the 1930s. ...
Banjoline by Gretsch Banjoline A special type of electric guitar developed by Eddie Peabody first with Fender Musical Instruments Co. ...
Use and performers Tenor guitars are now very closely associated with the tenor banjo with its similar standard CGDA fifths tuning and they initially came to significant commercial prominence in the late 1920s and early 1930s as tenor banjos were slowly being replaced by six string guitars in jazz bands and dance orchestras. Tenor banjo players could double on tenor guitars to get a guitar sound without having to learn the six string guitar. This is a practice still carried out by many contemporary jazz banjo players. This period is generally regarded as the initial "golden age" of the tenor guitar. The banjo is a string instrument, derived from banjar, an African string instrument. ...
Two of the McKendrick brothers, confusingly both named Mike - "Big" Mike and "Little" Mike, doubled on tenor banjo and tenor guitar in jazz bands dating from the 1920s. According to Bob Brozman in his book on National instruments - The History and Artistry of National Instruments, they both played National tenor guitars and they are both shown in the book in photos with their National tenor guitars. Bob Brozman (born 1954) is an American guitarist. ...
"Big" Mike McKendrick both managed and played with Louis Armstrong bands while 'Little' Mike McKendrick played with various bands, including Tony Parenti. Brozman's book also features photos of Hawaiian music bands that include players with both National tenor and plectrum guitars. Louis[1] Armstrong[2] (4 August 1901[3] – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo[4] and Pops, was an American jazz musician. ...
Tony Parenti (6 August 1900–17 April 1972) was an American jazz clarinettist and saxophonist born in New Orleans, perhaps best-known for his work from 1939-1945 with Ted Lewiss band playing alongside Muggsy Spanier. ...
Hawaiian music refers to the musical style native to the Hawaiian Islands of the United States. ...
The Delmore Brothers were a very influential pioneering country music duet from the early 1930s to the late 1940s that featured the tenor guitar. The Delmore Brothers were one of the original country vocal harmonising sibling acts that established the mould for later similar acts, such as the Louvin Brothers, and even later, the Everly Brothers. Alton (1908-1964) and Rabon Delmore (1916-1952), billed as The Delmore Brothers, were country music pioneers and stars of the Grand Ole Opry in the 1930s. ...
The Louvin Brothers were Charlie and Ira Louvin, an American duo best-known as the popularizers of close harmony, a kind of country music. ...
Don (born February 1, 1937 in Brownie, a small coal-mining town (now defunct) near Central City, Muhlenberg County, Kentucky) and Phil Everly (born January 18, 1939 in Chicago, Illinois) are country-influenced rock and roll performers who had their greatest success in the 1950s. ...
The younger of the Delmore brothers, Rabon, played the tenor guitar as an accompaniment to his older brother, Alton's, six string guitar. Rabon favoured the Martin 0-18T tenor guitar and the Louvin Brothers later recorded a famous tribute album to the Delmores which featured the Martin 0-18T tenor that had been played by Rabon.
Another interesting 1930s band to feature the tenor guitar was the Hoosier Hotshots, considered to be the creators of mid-western rural jazz. Their leader, Ken Trietsch, played the tenor guitar, as well as doubling on the tuba. The Hoosier Hot Shots were a quartet of madcap musicians who entertained on stage, screen, radio, and records from the mid thirties into the seventies. ...
For other uses, see Tuba (disambiguation). ...
A very old musical style called Texas fiddling uses the tenor guitar as part of its rhythm accompaniment. Texas fiddle music has had a very long continuous history which still continues strongly to this day. Annual old time fiddling contests have been held in Weiser, Idaho, since 1914, but the current contests date from 1953. The music in these contests usually strongly feature the tenor guitar. The tenor guitar of choice for this style seems to be the Martin 0-18T.
Well known exponents of the tenor guitar in Texas fiddle music are Jerry Thomassen, Al Mouledous and Gary Lee Moore. Jerry Thomassen has a signature tenor guitar named after him that is built by luthier, Steve Parks. Gary Lee Moore has produced an excellent teaching resource for playing the tenor guitar as backup for Texas fiddling, entitled, Getting Started in Fiddle Backup, obtainable as a free pdf download - see External Links.
In the 1930s Selmer Guitars in Paris manufactured four string guitars based on guitar designs by the famous Italian luthier Mario Maccaferri that were to be marketed to banjo players as a second six string guitar-like instrument. The six string versions of these guitars had been made very famous by French Gypsy jazz guitarist, Django Reinhardt in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. The Selmer Company was a manufacturer of musical instruments started in Paris, France in the early 1900s. ...
Jean Django Reinhardt (January 23, 1910 – May 16, 1953) was a Belgian Sinto Gypsy jazz guitarist. ...
The two main four string models offered by Selmer included a regular tenor guitar, with a 23 inch scale length, tuned CGDA, and the Eddie Freeman Special, with a larger body and a longer scale length, using a reentrant CGDA tuning. The Eddie Freeman Special had been designed by English tenor banjoist Eddie Freeman to have a better six string guitar sonority for rhythm guitar work than the normal tenor guitar with its very high A string. However, it was still tuned CGDA so that it could still be played by tenor banjoists. A reentrant tuning is a tuning of certain stringed instruments such as the ukulele or certain tenor guitars where the strings are not ordered from the lowest pitch to the highest pitch. ...
The Eddie Freeman Special was based on a six string model and it had a larger six string body and a six string scale length of 25.25 inches, rather than the tenor's smaller body and normal 23 inch scale length. The CGDA tuning used was re-entrant with the C and D tuned in the same octave and the G and the A tuned in the same octave, lowering the overall tone. The tuning and scale length give this very unusual four string guitar a sonority that is very close to that of the six string guitar, compared to a regular tenor guitar.
Unfortunately, this guitar was not commercially successful in the 1930s due to concerted resistance by the British six string guitar fraternity, particularly Ivor Mairaints. Many were subsequently converted to much more valuable six string models because of the Django Reinhardt connection. Originals of the Eddie Freeman Special are now very rare and are consequently highly valuable.
Recently, modern Maccaferri-style luthiers, such as the late David Hodson in the UK and Shelley Park in Canada, as well as others, have started building this four string model again due to demand from their customers. Many have now been made and they are becoming more widely played. They are considered to have a beautiful sound and offer a very broad range of tuning possibilities including CGDA, GDAE, DGBE, CGBD, DGBD and ADGB.
As the six string guitar eventually became more popular in bands in the 1930s and 1940s, tenor guitars became much less played, although some tenor guitar models had been made in very large numbers throughout this period and are now still common. Tenor guitars came to prominence again in the 1950s and 1960s, possibly due to the effects of the dixieland jazz revival and the folk music boom. At this time, they were made by makers such as Epiphone, Gibson, Guild and Gretsch as archtop acoustics and/or electrics, as well as a range of flat top models by Martin. Dixieland music is a style of jazz. ...
Around this time in the 1950s and 1960s, electric tenor guitars were also referred to as "lead guitars," although the rationale for this is not now clear, unless it was for marketing purposes. Lead playing on a six string guitar often involves just using its top four strings. A major player of the electric tenor as a lead guitarist in the bebop style from the 1940s to the 1970s was the brilliant jazz guitarist Tiny Grimes, whose recordings with the The Cats and The Fiddle and others are well worth investigating. Lloyd Tiny Grimes (July 7, 1916 in Newport News, Virginia, USA - March 4, 1989) was an American jazz and R&B guitarist. ...
The Martin 0-18T flat top acoustic tenor guitar was made very famous in the late 1950s by Nick Reynolds of The Kingston Trio. The acoustic tenor guitar became a popular instrument in the folk music boom of this period, particularly this model. In 1997, as a tribute to the Kingston Trio, Martin re-issued 34 limited edition 40th-anniversary commemorative sets (40 sets had been planned, but only 34 orders were received and executed) of the three main instruments used by the Kingston Trio to celebrate their founding in 1957. The commemorative set included a custom Martin Kingston Trio KT-18T tenor guitar with "The Kingston Trio" and “1957-1997” engraved on the fingerboard in mother-of-pearl and its label was signed by C. F. Martin IV, the CEO of Martin Guitars and 4 of the surviving members of the Kingston Trio. Nick Reynolds (born July 27, 1933) is a founding member of The Kingston Trio group, whose largely folk-based material captured international attention during the late fifties and early sixties. ...
The Kingston Trios original lineup: Bob Shane, Dave Guard, Nick Reynolds The Kingston Trio is an American folk group. ...
Current use In more recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in the tenor guitar and individual specialist luthiers, such as Joel Eckhaus of Earnest Instruments, now commonly adapt or build them as custom instruments for their customers. They are now even beginning to be mass manufactured again, such as the models offered by Gold Tone Instruments and Lark in the Morning. Amistar, a builder of resonator guitars in the Czech Republic, who follow the Czech Dopyera Brothers' tradition of making National and Dobro resonator guitars in the U.S., offers several tenor guitar models that are comparable to those offered in their golden era by both National and Dobro.
Modern players of the tenor guitar include Neko Case, Josh Rouse and Ani Di Franco and they are often used by musicians looking to replace or augment sounds produced by more conventional instruments. Elvis Costello features a tenor guitar on the title track of his 2004 release Delivery Man. On the video for "Club Date: Elvis Costello & the Imposters Live in Memphis" he is seen playing a Gretsch archtop single cutaway tenor guitar. Neko Case (IPA pronunciation: )[1] (born September 8, 1970 in Alexandria, Virginia) is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her solo career and as a member of The New Pornographers. ...
Josh Rouse (born 1972) is an American folk / roots pop singer-songwriter. ...
Ani DiFranco (pronounced AHH-nee) (born September 23, 1970) is a progressive feminist singer, guitarist, and songwriter. ...
The Delivery Man is a 2004 album by Elvis Costello. ...
They find most use in their original role as rhythm instruments in jazz and blues, as well as combining with six string guitars in jazz, blues, folk or ethnic music settings. Being tuned in fifths, they also work well with both mandolin family and violin family instruments. They can also fit into the mould of 'ethnic' sounding instruments, such as the bouzouki. For bouzoukia, see nightclubs in Greece. ...
Tenor guitars can be very difficult to locate since they were mostly manufactured in the United States. Up until relatively recently they were usually regarded as musical oddities with little value but now they are becoming very attractive to both players and collectors, particularly the National resonator instruments. Check out http://www.tenorguitar.com for comprehensive listings of sources of tenor guitars - both old and new.
Production tenor guitars by Gibson and Martin are still generally available, such as Gibson's ETG-150 electric/acoustic tenor guitar and Martin's 0-18T acoustic tenor guitar. Original tenor guitars in good condition by any of the major guitar makers are considered very desirable, both as instruments for playing, and as interesting collectibles in their own right. Some specially ordered custom tenor guitar models can be extremely rare since only one of them may have been manufactured.
Prominent UK users of the tenor guitar include the Lakeman brothers, Seth Lakeman and Sean Lakeman, and John McCusker and Ian Carr (guitarist), who both play with the Kate Rusby Band. Seth (Bernard) Lakeman is an English folk singer, songwriter, and musician from Yelverton, on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon. ...
John McCusker is a Scottish folk musician. ...
Ian Carr is an English guitarist from Yorkshire, who has performed with Swåp and The Kate Rusby Band. ...
Kate Rusby (born December 4, 1973) is an English folk singer and songwriter from Barnsley, South Yorkshire sometimes known as The Barnsley Nightingale. ...
Terry Bohner, a character in the film A Mighty Wind, uses a tenor guitar. A Mighty Wind is a 2003 mockumentary about a folk music reunion concert and the three groups that must come together to perform on national television for the first time in years. ...
Sting used a tenor guitar on "Dead Man's Rope," from his 2003 album Sacred Love. This article is about the musician. ...
Sacred Love is the eighth studio album by Sting. ...
Further reading - Richards, Tobe A. (2007). The Tenor Guitar Chord Bible: Standard & Irish Tuning 2,880 Chords. United Kingdom: Cabot Books. ISBN 978-1-906207-05-2. — A comprehensive chord dictionary instructional guide featuring both standard and Irish tuning.
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