Yes I know both ( Leadbelly and Leo Kottke), alas my capabilities are not so high.
Lol@Pete Seeger quote :D
12 String Guitar
jost: An understandable sentiment. I love finger-style guitar (listening and playing) and this is just not possible for me with the 12 string. On the other hand the 12 string is great for songs with heavy strumming (Eg Star of the county down, The Blacksmith etc).
It is perfectly possible to play fingerstyle on a twelve string. Leadbelly did it. So did Leo Kottke. Check this out.
The real problem with 12 strings was expressed by Pete Seeger: You spend half your life tuning your guitar and the other half playing out-of-tune.
--
Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator
As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie
Dusty Turtle:
Just noticed this post, @jost. How's the 12-string been treating you? I have a 12-string guitar made in Canada by Seagull that I bought several years ago, just before I discovered the dulcimer. It's fun to play something with such a full sound, isn't it?
Well up to now I didn't have much time for music since my last post here due to the workload on my employer. Now I'm on a two week vacation so more time for music :D
The full sound is really the nice thing, same why I prefer playing with two melody strings on the dulcimer and what I love about my Hummel.
Ken Hulme:
I don't play, but have several friends and bandmates who play 12 strings, and I know 3 players of 24 and 30 string Harp Guitars -- talk about "full sound"!"
Hollar when you're ready, Jost, and I'll build you the dulcimer equivilent -- 9 strings (3 courses of three strings each), on a 3" deep x 9" wide body, 27" VSL, with a double-back like a Galax.
Yeah I knew of harp guitars. They are heavily used in Viennas "Schrammel Music" (named after Schrammel brothers who popularized these in Viennas wine pubs at the end of 19th century):
As far I know you can get them only custom built so for the moment out of my financial and musical capabilities.
Interesting enough there used to be a so called "Bass lute" which was basically a lute guitar with extra bass strings:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Basslaute
Concerning the dulcimer equivalent: I already own a eight stringed hummel ;) And I fear the transatlantic shipment costs from your place to mine would cost more than the actual instrument. A more radical "12 stringed dulcimer" would be the hungarian zither the maker of my Dulcimer offers them too (with 19 strings!):
https://www.klangwerkstatt.de/ungarische-zither
Ken Longfield:
I didn't notice this post before either. My only experience with at 12 string guitar was a Yamaha that a college roommate owned. I played around with it some, but I never got into it. That was over 50 years ago. I do like the sound of a 12 string, but it is not something I enjoy playing.
An understandable sentiment. I love finger-style guitar (listening and playing) and this is just not possible for me with the 12 string. On the other hand the 12 string is great for songs with heavy strumming (Eg Star of the county down, The Blacksmith etc).
I didn't notice this post before either. My only experience with at 12 string guitar was a Yamaha that a college roommate owned. I played around with it some, but I never got into it. That was over 50 years ago. I do like the sound of a 12 string, but it is not something I enjoy playing.
Ken
"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."
I don't play, but have several friends and bandmates who play 12 strings, and I know 3 players of 24 and 30 string Harp Guitars -- talk about "full sound"!"
Hollar when you're ready, Jost, and I'll build you the dulcimer equivilent -- 9 strings (3 courses of three strings each), on a 3" deep x 9" wide body, 27" VSL, with a double-back like a Galax.
updated by @ken-hulme: 04/07/22 07:22:55AM
Just noticed this post, @jost. How's the 12-string been treating you? I have a 12-string guitar made in Canada by Seagull that I bought several years ago, just before I discovered the dulcimer. It's fun to play something with such a full sound, isn't it?
--
Dusty T., Northern California
Site Moderator
As a musician, you have to keep one foot back in the past and one foot forward into the future.
-- Dizzy Gillespie
Hello everybody,
some weeks ago I saw an interesting ad in Facebook: A gentleman offered to sale his fender 12 string guitar for 50% of the original price. Since this sounded to good to be true I googled the model.
It turned out to be a "signature model" of some punk musician (thus kind of silly "evil" "Hellcat" and "Skull" inlays). Although the inlays are debatable the reviewers agreed that the sound has much value for money.
And it has a pickup included.
So I wrote the owner a message I would be interesting to try it.
From the first sound I was hooked. He explained to me that he had a kind of serios "Guitar acquisition syndrome" (I feel with him) and needs to downsize his collection.
Good for me, I ended with a great sounding fender twelve strings guitar:
Better quality pictures on my profile page.
And a demo recording so you might get an idea of the sound:
What I like is that just with pick and a simple strumming pattern one can create quite great sounding music.
Finger-Picking is a lot harder though expect your name is Leo Kottke
What are your experiences with twelve string guitars ?
Regards, Jost.
updated by @jost: 02/20/22 05:51:54PM
