Does anyone use tenor guitar for trad. Irish music melody playing?
Just curious…
-Brett
I’ve been a guitar player for 13 years. What is a tenor guitar? I know what a bass guitar is…is a tenor just a fancy name for a standard axe?
John Carty plays a fine tenor guitar; his latest cd has several cuts on TG. Dan Beimborn has at least one cut on a National tenor on his “Shatter the Calm” cd as well.
No, it’s not.
Back before steel strings, guitars were strung with gut, and were therfore a good deal quiter than thay are now.
The popular choice for the ‘strummer’ role in the early days of recording was a tenor banjo. This was a four-string banjo tuned in fifths, just like a mandolin or violin.
After the invention of steel strings guitars began to replace tenor banjos as the more popular instrument. During the transition, one hybrid (a four string guitar, ie a tenor banjo nect ona guitar body) gained brief popularity as an instrument that gave tenor banjo players access to the new sound without having to learn the fretboard all over again.
Because of this instrument’s affinity with Mando/TB/Violin, most irish music falls easily under your fingers, particularly if you change the ‘original’ CGDA tuning to GDAE.
and here’s Dan and his National on Youtube
My first banjo was a guitar.
Some years ago, I found a beat up Old Kraftsman Tenor Guitar on ebay for $90. I got a tenor banjo instruction book and started practicing. I dragged it to session for a year or two but got frustrated because I couldn’t hear myself. It has a great sound, it just really can’t compete with fiddles, sqeezeboxes and pipes. So I broke down and bought a banjo. I still use the guitar for practice at home.
It’s funny, but at the sessions most folks just assumed it was a 6 string. I kept getting suggestions about what chords to play. And on a couple of occasions, someone would lean over and tell me “that guitar only has four strings!”. Like I was careless and losing them or something.
Actually, I’ve given up on finding a tenor guitar for now and purchased a baritone ukulele instead. I’m going to try tuning it GDAE…we’ll see how that works out. I am getting different strings for it, not tuning it to GDAE with the stock strings.
But, after I’d already ordered the uke, I did find this:
http://www.infolinkmiami.com/soaresy/catalog.html
…which I may try out at some point (looks almost just like a bari uke though).
-Brett
Oooh. Those electric tenors are the BOMB.
I know he has atleast one with a TG on “Torch and Fire” also.
I was at a CD store last week and saw a new CD with two musicians (can’t remember who) on had a Tenor Banjo the other a TG it was released on Compass and was in the Celtic section. I think one of the musicians was Eamon Coyne I don’t know if it is the same one who makes Flutes.
http://www.eamonncoyne.com/hts.htm
Eamonn Coyne is a fine tenor banjo player from Dublin; i have his earlier cd (which features some tracks with McGoldrick, Dermot Byrne and others). I dunno about the flutes; maybe you’re thinking of Eamonn Cotter? Anyway the new one looks interesting, there are some samples at the link above.
I must have been thinking about Cotter.
Eamonn Coyne’s new duo CD w/Kris Drever indeed has a couple tracks with tenor guitar on it–good stuff!
While you’re at it, check out Drever’s band, Lau: http://www.lau-music.co.uk/
Banjo this year
http://www.east-durham.org/irishartsweek/