Tenor guitar - Four string guitar
Four string guitar/ Tenor guitar
The tenor guitar is a slightly smaller, four-string version of the steel-string acoustic guitar or electric guitar. The instrument (in its acoustic form) was developed so that players of the four-string tenor banjo could double on the guitar. Later, solid-body electric models were also produced.
Tenor guitars are four stringed instruments normally made in the shape of a guitar, or sometimes with a lute-like pear shaped body or, more rarely, with a round banjo-like wooden body. They can be acoustic and/or electric and they can come in the form of flat top, archtop, wood-bodied or metal-bodied resonator or solid-bodied instruments. Tenor guitars normally have a scale length (from bridge to nut) of between 21 and 23 inches.
Tenor guitars are normally tuned in fifths (usually CGDA, similar to the tenor banjo or the viola), although other tunings are possible, such as "guitar tuning", "Chicago tuning," or baritone ukulele tuning (DGBE), "Irish" or "octave mandolin" tuning (GDAE) and various "open" tunings, for slide playing. The tenor guitar can also be tuned like a ukulele, using various versions of GCEA tuning.
The normal CGDA tuning is very "open" and it gives the instrument unusual voicings from both open and closed chords. The fifths tuning also makes for easy moveable chord shapes. The instrument is equally well suited to both rhythm and lead playing.
Though books are available for the standard tunings above, books are also available for more esoteric tunings as well such as GDAD, CGBD and DGBE in the Chord Genius series of books published by Northern Musician Services. One of the main attractions of this instrument is its breadth of available tunings.
The tenor guitar is a slightly smaller, four-string version of the steel-string acoustic guitar or electric guitar. The instrument (in its acoustic form) was developed so that players of the four-string tenor banjo could double on the guitar. Later, solid-body electric models were also produced.Tenor guitars are four stringed instruments normally made in the shape of a guitar, or sometimes with a lute-like pear shaped body or, more rarely, with a round banjo-like wooden body. They can be acoustic and/or electric and they can come in the form of flat top, archtop, wood-bodied or metal-bodied resonator or solid-bodied instruments. Tenor guitars normally have a scale length (from bridge to nut) of between 21 and 23 inches.
Tenor guitars are normally tuned in fifths (usually CGDA, similar to the tenor banjo or the viola), although other tunings are possible, such as "guitar tuning", "Chicago tuning," or baritone ukulele tuning (DGBE), "Irish" or "octave mandolin" tuning (GDAE) and various "open" tunings, for slide playing. The tenor guitar can also be tuned like a ukulele, using various versions of GCEA tuning.
The normal CGDA tuning is very "open" and it gives the instrument unusual voicings from both open and closed chords. The fifths tuning also makes for easy moveable chord shapes. The instrument is equally well suited to both rhythm and lead playing.
Though books are available for the standard tunings above, books are also available for more esoteric tunings as well such as GDAD, CGBD and DGBE in the Chord Genius series of books published by Northern Musician Services. One of the main attractions of this instrument is its breadth of available tunings.