Oggy, Unfortunately no, I don't have one currently, though I've had about 9 really nice ones; Martin flattop, Epiphone(walnut archtop with matching case...sniff), 30's Gibson archtop( can you say 'butter'?), Vega flattop, Gibson flattop(thinking of buying this one back soon's the money comes in), Kay archtops, etc...I do miss having one to mess with. Whether strung in fifths or like an octave mandolin, I like the range they have. My main hurdle to playing a tenor was to stop thinking with mandolin brain and play it for what it is, sort of the same thing I have to do with the mandola. With the single courses, I find a lot of mandolin technique won't necessarily work either, though curiously, the archtops seems to work more like mandos than do the flattops. Maybe it's just me.
You might check around and find some of Joe Craven's recordings. He's nutso about tenors and does some good work with them. Thanks for the topic. Tenor Bug On Mar 9, 11:05 am, Oggy <[email protected]> wrote: > Any fans of tenor guitars in this group... besides me? > > I ordered a Gibson L-00 copy from David Sundberg last year (one of > Swedens top luthiers, very capable, even used to work for Bill > Collings)... and I've played it everyday since I received it in april. > The way I see it, it's the perfect cross-bread between the a guitar > and a mandolin. It's tuned GDAE, with quite high string pressure. I > can play it almost as a mandolin, but it sounds like a regular guitar > (almost...tenors do have a certain sound with regard to the tuning in > fifths, and of course it doesn't have the same bass response). > > Well, I do love playing regular guitars and mandolin (and mandola) > too, but sometimes my tenor just seems to suit the tune better. > > In a recent interview at the Mandolin Cafe, Lowell Lovinger said the > folIowing about tenor guitars: "I promote it everywhere, but so far it > seems that I'm the only one actually playing one on gigs and records. > I just don't understand why everybody doesn't jump on the bandwagon. I > guess there's just no accounting for taste." Hence I started thinking, > why doesn't more people play the tenor guitar? People seem to consider > it an oddball instrument, way down in the hierarchy... more like an > instrument to goof around with than to play with ambition. What do > y'all think? > > The most interesting thing about my own fascination for tenor guitars > is that Mr. Compton himself started it. I saw a video clip of him > playing a tenor guitar (he was playing with a bunch of great folks, > John Hartford, Norman Blake, Tut Taylor, Vassar... can't remember the > occasion), and his bluesy licks just struck a chord inside of me. The > video could be found on Taters old website. > > So Mike... do you have a tenor guitar? If so, do you play it a lot? If > not, why? > > BTW, I'll upload a picture of my Sundberg tenor guitar. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Taterbugmando" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/taterbugmando?hl=en.
