I started playing guitar about 25 years ago so I could accompany myself singing. After about three years of practicing for an hour and a half every day, I reached the high level of expertise which could only be called LOUSY. I'm not being modest. I could not play with anyone else without messing them up. As for accompanying myself, I had manged only to work up a few jerky renditions of some Hank Williams tunes. Folk music to me was out of sight. I gave up all that practising but still kept playing regularly.

Then one day about fifteen years ago, I discovered a baratone ukalele in a music store. The guy said that sometimes folks tuned it like the four high strings of a guitar. I laid my money down. When I got it home I could play (strum) it immediately better than I ever could the guitar. As I spent a lot of time playing this instrument, I began wishing that there was such a thing as a four string guitar. Silly me!

Someone loand me a tenor guitar and I had a ball, but it wasn't enough. I wanted more sound. So I bought an old Silvertone for 20 bucks and took it to one of the few craftsmen that we still have among us. I told him to make it into an eight string tenor guitar, just like the high eight strings of a twelve string. He did so and I loved it. A couple years later I jumped in quality to an Alverez and now I can accompany myself on pretty much anything I want to do.

And that is the story of how I have managed to the rise to the high reaches of "good enough to get by" with no talent whatsoever added to a little imagination.

Now, if you are still with me through all that, first of all, thank you. Secondly, I would be interested in hearing from folks who:

1. Know about any other such eight string tenor guitars.

2. Have a similar story of overcoming lack of natural ability through imagination.

And if you are still with me now, Bless your pea pickin' heart.

John