A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing

Subject: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Wesley S
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 10:37 AM

I was at a store over the weekend and I thought I saw a mandola on the wall. When I got closer I saw that it was a guitar with 9 strings. Three pairs of strings on the high E B and G and single strings for the low D A and E. It was made by Dean { not the pinacle of luthery in my book }and had a teardrop shape like a flat top mandolin but it was longer like a mandola. I was interested in it except for the fact that it was hard to play and I didn't like the tone {it's the little things}.

Has anyone heard of a better version of an intrument like this ? It could be a nice travel guitar - some jangle on the top but with a more defined bottom.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: kendall
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 10:53 AM

I had a wife like that.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: The DeanMeister
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 11:04 AM

I still do.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 11:55 AM

Linda's a bit like that - and come to think of it, Kendall, so's Jacqi.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Big Jim from Jackson
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 12:00 PM

Didn't Art Theime take a 12 string and deliberatly make it into a 9 string?   It is the guitar that he always played. The 9 string, the banjo, and a saw gave about as much music as anyone could want---when they were in Art's hands!

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 12:02 PM

Seems like somebody was taken with the sound of bluesman Big Joe Williams's sound. He adapted a 6 string as he was fed up apparently with people wanting to play his guitar when it was a regular six string. Makes a good story anyway. If you had actually seen Big Joe's
luthiery work you would be amazed that he got anything musical out of his nine string adaptation but he most certainly did.

The late Cyril Davies in England had a similar machine and he very graciously loaned it to me for a while. Good fun.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 03:26 PM

Art had a nine string alvarez, I believe and then also adapted a Martin with three extra tuners. Yes he doubled the three higher strings for a fuller sound.

When I was a college student on an exchange program in London a long time ago I saw someone doing a floor spot at the Cecil Sharp house playing a guitar with the lower strings doubled (octaves like a twelve string) for a full bass sound and clean notes in the treble register. I believe his name was Nick (sp?) Pickett.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 03:33 PM

Wow! Cyril Davies as in the Cyril Davies Allstars? I still have some sampler vinyl with some of his stuff on.

John Mayall also played a 9-string guitar quite a lot.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 12:14 AM

I don't much care for instruments that have two strings tuned the same. They don't seem to stay in tune with one another very long, and soon the effect is muddy.

The chiming of a twelve-string is one example. It's nice for a little while, but not for all night.

I'm one of those that has only one melody string on my mountain dulcimer.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 04:55 AM

Yes Richard Bridge, Cyril Davies of the Allstars. Sadly after doing so much to promote the music he loved he died very young before the 60's "rediscoveries" and tours really got under way. Sadly also much of the credit for the interest in the music goes to his one time partner Alexis Korner who in my mind was a less impressive musician.
AND before you all get out the pens and vitriol please remember that this is MY OWN PERSONAL VIEW. Having heard them both in person on numerous occasions and on record I still believe that Cyril came as near to the spirit of the real thing as you could get.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Eric the Viking
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 05:52 AM

Robert Tulroch of the Swedish band Vassen uses a specially customised 9 string guitar derived from a 12 string.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: pavane
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 08:01 AM

The name Nick Pickett does ring a bell - but I can't remember where from.

Gill Burns played (still plays?) a specially made 7 string guitar

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: kendall
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 08:09 AM

"The 4 string banjo was invented by a fella who couldn't play the 5 string banjo." (Granpa Jones)

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Bernard
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 10:32 AM

Phil Seddon recently had a nine-stringer custom built, but with single strings for E, B and G, and octave doubles on the A, D and low E...

Phil's a regular at the White Lion (run by Ged, Spot the Dog and Dave the Gnome).

I'm not sure I really understand the point of such instruments that are neither one thing nor the other... if I want the twelve-string sound, I use my twelve-string, and I use a couple of 6-strings in different tunings for other stuff...

7-string guitars are fairly commonplace in Russia, BTW.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 11:56 AM

Instruments that are neither one thing or another ??????

A seven string guitar is a seven string guitar, a nine string guitar is a nine string guitar, a twelve string....................

Did I miss something ?

Sorry, I have a few minutes to spare.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Raedwulf
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 12:36 PM

Bernard - 7 strings (assuming you mean 7 single strings) is probably a holdover from an older tradition of instruments. 7 courses (13 strings, only the 1st course is not doubled) is pretty much bog-standard for the lute, frex. I don't know much about the old Russian folk instruments, but I wouldn't be at all surprised something that used to be 7 courses/strings.

Hoot - Sorry, I'm inclined to agree with Bern. Guitars are 6- or 12-, & if they're not are neither one thing, nor... The development of the guitar is from 4-6 string instruments. 12-strings aren't really anything different. In medieval terms, they're a 6 course guitar, just double- instead of single- courses. Extra strings over & above 6 are usually bass drones. I bet that isn't what people use the 7th on a guitar as? It strikes me (never having seen one) as a bastardized instrument - which means "neither, etc".

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 01:25 PM

Yes, I played a 9-string. As a youth I'd followed Big Joe Williams all around Chicago to his gigs when he was recording for Bob Koester at Delmark Records. Joe had a 3-tuner strip of gears mounted to the top of his tuning head wood stock. One of those tuners extended past where there was any wood to attach it to. It really was jury-rigged. BUT I always thought there was a chance the 9-string had some good points to it...
I didn't like the Alvarez I got first very much. Got rid of it and...

Then I WON a D-76 bicentennial edition Martin guitar in a raffle at the Old Town School Of Folk Music in Chicago. (Cost me $3.00 in raffle tickets!!)

My hands were going numb by then and I wanted more sound with less work/intricate picking--but still a clear bass that wasn't muddy like a 12-string with all those octave strings. I wanted to strum more. My thumb was still useful for picking--more than my fingers were. (For some reason it still is less numb than my other fingers.) I did ANYTHING to be able to keep on making a living as a musician. I drilled 3 holes down the center of the tuning stock of my three dollar Martin Dreadnaught. Into those holes went three straignt-through planetary banjo gears to make the Martin 6-sting into my 9-string. I printed up cards saying KING OF THE NINE STRING GUITAR--and the rest is history ('cause I can't pick at all now.)

------Well, it took 12 years and 4 spinal and neck surgeries from doctors that seemingly got it wrong (with 3 neck disc fusions) to tell me it wasn't carpal tunnel or spinal stenosis or spinal cord injury; Mayo Clinic finally got it right in '97! It was Multiple Sclerosis. By then I wasn't able to press the strings or make accurate chords. I tuned down one and a half notes and used a capo to lower the strings. Anything to keep being a folksinger.----Now my 12-string Bicentennial Martin D-76 guitar is owned by our son, Chris. If I have a spontaneous healing, and he'll lend it to me, I know where to find it!!

Still, I did get some good years of work out of it before I slammed a car trunk on it and made tooth picks out of it. Jan Burda in Berian Springs, Michigan did a wonderful job rebuilding it and now it's practically as good as new.

There you have it---for what it's worth.   ;-)

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 06:51 PM

Thank you for sharing your story with us Art. My wife was a keen banjo player til she got rheumatoid arthritis. Mind you that was a hell of a longtime ago in the 70's when all that kicked off.

I'm sure everybody feels a load of sympathy with you. I cannot think of anything we could do, but I feel sure if theres anything that occurrs to you that might be feasible to help you cope with your loss
, I'm sure all the musicians on mudcat would only be too pleased to try to help.

Sorry if that sounds dumb.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: John Routledge
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 07:26 PM

Big Joe Williams was on UK TV in the 60's

He was introduced as the best 9 string guitar player in the world as he was the only 9 string guitar player in the world!!

As a spotty youth I thought the sound wonderful.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 10:13 PM

Well, thanks, I guess. Sympathy I don't want or need. It's just the reality---and I'm amazed what one can get used to when ya gotta do it. I think I "mourned" for those things right here at Mudcat in these many threads. And Mudcatters were great then as always. If any of you are at the FOX VALLEY FOLK AND STORY TELLING FESTIVAL over the Labor Day Weekend next week, well, Carol and I are planning to attend. Come over and say hello!

By the way: That fine festival is in Geneva, Illinois--about 40 miles West of Chicago on U.S. route 38---in Island Park--on an island in the middle of the FOX RIVER.

The festival runs on Sunday and Labor Day Monday only !!

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 25 Aug 04 - 11:29 PM

Art, we'll be there, of course. I'm trying to see if John Roberts and I can work up a version of Jack Orion with me backing him up on guitar. He's up for it, but we have to see if we can pry the time loose to do it. Will be glad to see Judy Cook there as well.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 05:02 AM

Thanks for the explanation Raedwulf. One question though what would be the simple answer if somebody asked me what instrument was played by Big Joe Williams ?? (in addition to his regular six stringed instrument). For more than forty years Joe has been described as playing a nine string guitar.

And whilst on the subject what should we call a 5 string violin and a five string double bass.

Keep on pickin'

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 11:40 AM

Big Joe never played a 6-string when I was watching. It was always a 9-string.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: GUEST,Mooh
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 12:57 PM

I'm sure there are other nine string threads...

I like the idea of any and all guitar designs outside the norm, for different sounds and timbres. I couldn't justify a 9 string except if it solved some problem for me, but I sure would like a 7 string acoustic (and no, I'm not into the rock 7 string styles), but I settled for a baritone instead.

Have been thinking of adding drones to an old plywood classical, if I could only find my jack knife and hatchet...

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Raedwulf
Date: 26 Aug 04 - 04:38 PM

Hoot - Well since everyone seems to be content to call it a 9 string... *g* However, I (for one) read the title & thought "interesting", only to find that what was meant was a weirdly strung bog-standard guitar. Which wasn't anywhere near as interesting!

There seems to a lot of experimenting going on these days. Double neck electrics have been around for a long time. Five string electric basses are almost commonplace. I wonder how much of it is driven by music & how much by pretentiousness, people looking for an easy way of standing out. I remember reading a blurb for a band not very long ago who were busy boasting how innovative they were, writing a lot of their stuff in 5/4 & 7/4 & other such weird timings. Nope, not innovative, lads, just pretentious. It's generally jarring on the ear & unmusical as a consequence. Useful as a special effect, or for an occasional piece, but tedious when overdone (like strobes in a light show).

The problem, as far as adding courses to a guitar type instrument goes, is that it is a polyphonic instrument. Several notes at a time. How you gonna hold 'em down properly as the neck gets ever wider (never mind that you're running out of fingers)? I've yet to come across a lute piece that involves fretting anything beyond the 6th course (though I'm not suggesting they don't exist). On the really big lutes (anything up to 19 courses, see here), most of the drones don't even have a fretboard underneath!

As to 5 string violins/double basses, they're essentially monophonic (OK, the violin is double stopped occasionally...), so I can see some point to the extra string, but I can't imagine they're much use in an orchestra, frex.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 27 Aug 04 - 04:44 AM

Hi Art

I didn't see Joe with a six string either except in that old photograph where for some reason he's also holding it "Southpaw".
But if you check out his early 78's I think you'll find he played 6 string on some if not all of those.

Raedwulf: I'm not one for experimenting with instruments and I'm no lover of weird and wonderful electronics. Give me an unadulterated acoustic instrument any time. In the words of George D Hay "Keep it down to earth boys"

Keep on pickin' and/or grinnin'

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Aug 04 - 07:45 AM

its what works for you of course. Didn't Spider John Koerner play a seven string at one time. There wasn't much bullshit about SJK - presumably he saw some advantage.

The ultimate time signatures gig must have been tis music for a play in derby. the play was concerned with war time derby and I volunteered along with a few of the local folkies who had been canvassed on the local folk programme.

Anyway when we got there for our first rehearsal - the playwright was too important to come and see us, but one of his gophers had left the message - we could play pretty much what we wanted, but it had to be in 15/17 time. Well I listened to the first five minutes of what we came up with and I walked......

later i ran into one of the guys at a sherry evening or some such, and I asked him how he'd got on. Well it didn't get any better, he said, and we both collapsed laughing.....

15/17 time...pretentious, moi?

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: GUEST,Nick Pickett
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 09:13 PM

The guitar I was playing at that time had 8-strings. It was a Framus 12-string guitar with part of the head sawn off! The bass strings E and A each had an additional adjacent string tuned an octave above normal. I used it for a couple of years or more, and recorded my album "Silversleeves" with it (Warner Reprise K44172) and the single "America" (Warner Reprise K14156), both released in 1972. The album sleeve had a photograph of the guitar on the back. Shortly after that I returned to playing a conventional 6-string guitar.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 10:27 PM

"I didn't see Joe with a six string either except in that old photograph where for some reason he's also holding it "Southpaw"."

Sometimes, for various reasons, photos get printed reversed.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: MAG
Date: 06 Sep 04 - 11:56 PM

That had to be the same Big Joe Williams who was on a double bill w/ Big Mama Thornton at Alice's on Wrightwood Avenue in the early 70's --

only time I ever saw either of them. They seemed to be sparring over who "really" had top billing.

They were both wonderful anyway. what I remember about BJW was my first exposure to bottleneck slide guitar.

sorry for the thread creep.

I hope Fox Valley was a gas. Juel Ulven & Co. are a class act.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 07 Sep 04 - 12:10 AM

G'day all,

I admit I haven't closely scanned every post ... but I don't notice references or links to earlier threads on 9-string guitars. I have collected a lot of music-linked graphices ... and I have a lotof late 19th / early 20th century catalogue illustrations (generally small stee-engravings of the type used to run off "cheap cuts" for usic ads in newspapers, magazines and catalogues).

These include a number of 9-string guitars ... often with "Hawaiian" in the description. Perhaps there was a vogue for beefing up the treble set in early steel guitar technique (back before electricity could do that sort of thing for you!).

I seem to remember replying along this line in an earlier thread ... probably from someone's direct question about Art's instrument and style.

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Tigger the Tiger
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 05:32 AM

Joe could have played just about anything you handed him;this guitar lived through it all. He did not consider the 9-string as odd at all;it was just the way he wanted it to sound.He did exactly as he pleased each day of his life;he certainly did not use a 9 string to be different.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: GUEST,john james
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 01:17 PM

I play a nine-string guitar made by Roger Bucknall of Fylde Guitars.
Top three strings are doubled.I think there is a picture of the instrument on the Fylde guitar web site.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 03:39 PM

Just for kicks, a bit of historical perspective:

CLICKY

Reading from left to right,

Renaissance guitar. Like a four-string tenor guitar, except that the first string is single ("chanterelle") and the next three strings are "courses," or double strings. Tuning? Just like the top four strings of a modern guitar—or like a baritone ukulele (and not much bigger). It emerged around the 1500s and it's generally agreed that, although there are instruments with names like "kithara," "chitarra," and so on, usually derivative from the lute and its ancestors, the renaissance guitar is regarded by most music historians and classic guitar experts as the "Lucy" of guitar evolution: the first step leading to the modern guitar. And a guitar in its own right.

Vihuela, or Vihuela de Mano. Especially popular in Spain, six courses like a modern 12-string guitar but usually with a single top string. The tuning was like a six-course lute—like a modern guitar, except that the third string (course) was a half-step lower (a major third between the fourth and third strings instead of between the third and second)

The Baroque guitar. Came in about 1600 and prevailed until around 1750 or so. Five courses, but with a single top string. Relative tuning exactly the same as the top five strings of a modern guitar. A modern guitarist could play one right off, but if he or she reached for the sixth string, it wouldn't be there.

Finally, the Romantic guitar (named after its emergence in the Romantic period of classical music). Six single strings tuned just like a modern guitar. About the size of a parlor guitar, and this was more than likely the kind of instrument that people like Fernando Sor played.

Later, composer and guitar virtuoso Francisco Tàrrega and luthier Antonio de Torres got together and cobbled up the first modern classical guitar—pretty much standardized the size, fan-bracing system to distribute the vibrations across the whole soundboard, along with other innovations to improve volume, resonance, and sustain.

Note that the renaissance guitar, the vihuela, and the Baroque guitar all have straight one-to-one ratio wooden tuning pegs—must have been a b*tch to tune—but the Romantic guitar generally had geared tuning machines, a major advance in technology.

The renaissance guitar and the Baroque guitar are seeing a sudden resurgence of interest. The lute came out of retirement some years ago with people such as Paul O'Dette, Ronn MacFarlane (Baltimore Consort), and number of others, but with the recent interest in Early Music played on authentic instruments, the renaissance and Baroque guitars are back! There's a young woman here in this area who plays modern classic guitar, lute, and Baroque guitar, who, in addition to teaching at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington (thirty miles south of Seattle), is very busy giving concerts and recitals and playing with various Early Music groups. Elizabeth Brown with Baroque guitar.

One of the reasons for the popularity of the renaissance and Baroque guitars back in the eras in which they emerged was that the lute kept growing and increasing the number of strings, especially basses, until you've got something like THIS MONSTER! Eventually, people said, "This is ridiculous!!" and they laid the thing flat and devised a system of key-operated levers with leather picks on them and the harpsichord was born, which, in turn, led to the piano.

In the meantime, the renaissance and Baroque guitars were small, easy to hold, relatively inexpensive, and—even though there is some very serious and quite difficult music written for these instruments—relatively easy to learn to play. "Serious" musicians often looked down their noses at them, saying that "REAL musicians play the lute. These 'guitar' things are merely for young ladies and amateurs to sing to simple strumming—sneer, sneer!" But people, not just professional musicians, played them a lot, and I can imagine ballads and simple love songs and such being sung to the accompaniment of one of these early guitars.

I'd love to get my sweaty little hands on a Baroque guitar replica, but you can't touch decent one for much under $3,000. Somewhat beyond my means at the moment.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 03:48 PM

The late Jonathan Eberhart of FSGW (Wash DC folk Society) collected instruments.

Here are two guitars, one of which is very strange.

Many of the others were exotic things from the Far East.

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 03:53 PM

Direct link to better pic of the strange guitar

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 04:02 PM

Did Spider John Koerner not play a nine string guitar?

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: Leadfingers
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 07:24 PM

I knew a lad in Singapore in the late sixties who played what he called a Guinjo - Four pairs tuned in unison to open G with a single Octave G !

Subject: RE: A bizarre 9 string guitar type thing
From: PHJim
Date: 20 Oct 11 - 12:03 AM

I have seen three incarnations of the seven string guitar. Spider John had a guitar with an octave G string added making the third course a double. Nowadays he seems to prefer a 12- string. Roger McGuinn was probably influenced by Spider John, since he is playing one of these a lot these days.
George Van Epps added an extra bass course to his guitar, making it a seven course instrument. This seems to have caught on with a lot of jazz guys.
Lenny Breau added an extra treble course to his guitar. I've never seen anyone else do this.

Jimmy Bowskill has done some carpentry to one of his acoustics and made it into a nine string.

I like to play a high-strung (Nashville tuned) guitar with a regularly strung guitar sometimes. I use the high octaves from a 12-string set.

I also have an old mandolin that I tune with octaves on the G and D strings.