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52-419: Although its name suggests a combination of banjo and mandolin, it is technically considered to be a type of plectrum guitar , a variant of the electric guitar, resembling the banjo and mandolin only in terms of its four course stringing. The Banjoline has six strings arranged in four courses and it has a scale length similar to that of a plectrum banjo. The two lowest courses consist of pairs of two strings and

104-460: A mandocello , C 2 − G 2 − D 3 − A 3 , one octave down from the tenor guitar, much as the relationship between a viola and cello. Plectrum guitars have not been made in as large numbers as tenor guitars and are rarer. One of the best known plectrum guitarists from the Jazz Age was Eddie Condon , who started out on banjo in the 1920s and then switched to a Gibson L7 plectrum guitar in

156-523: A bass guitar. The result was the Fender Precision Bass . It consisted of an ash bolt-on maple neck. The scale for the bass was 34." "It also had "cutaways for better balance." Now guitarists could double on bass, and the bass player of the band would not have to carry around a huge upright bass. It entered the market in 1951. Fender's second bass model, the Jazz Bass , was introduced in 1959. It had

208-568: A few followers and Gibson reintroduced the guitar in 1967. The Explorer was also reintroduced, in the mid-1970s. Both guitars are still in production today. In 1961, Gibson discontinued the Les Paul model and replaced it with a new design. The result was the Solid Guitar (SG). It weighed less and was less dense than the Les Paul. It had double cutaways to allow easier access to the top frets. Eventually

260-430: A round banjo-like wooden body. They can be acoustic, electric or both and they can come in the form of flat top or archtop wood-bodied, metal-bodied resonator, or solid-bodied instruments. Tenor guitars normally have a scale length similar to that of the tenor banjo and octave mandolin of between 21 and 23 inches (53 and 58 cm). The earliest origins of the tenor guitar are not clear, but it seems unlikely that

312-495: A second instrument. The two main four-string Selmer models were a regular tenor guitar with a smaller body and a 23 inch scale length for standard CGDA tuning, and the Eddie Freeman Special, with a larger body and a longer 25.5-inch scale length, using a reentrant tuning for the A string which was designed by English tenor banjoist Eddie Freeman to have a better six-string guitar sonority for rhythm guitar work than

364-521: A slimmer neck at the nut, a different two pickup combination, and an offset body shape. While it did not become extremely popular among jazz players, it was well received in rock music. Many companies today produced models based on the body shapes first started by Fender. Gibson created the Gibson Electric Bass to be introduced in the 1953. The scale, 30 ½" was shorter than the Fender basses. Its body

416-430: A tenor guitar for much of his early work as Songs: Ohia . The instrument is often used by musicians looking to replace or augment sounds produced by more conventional instruments. Elvis Costello features a tenor guitar on the title track of his 2004 release Delivery Man . Wes Borland , the guitarist for nu metal band Limp Bizkit plays a low-tuned ( F 1 − F 2 − B 2 − E 3 ) four-string guitar on

468-512: A true four-stringed guitar-shaped tenor guitar appeared before the late 1920s. Gibson built the tenor lute TL-4 in 1924, which had a lute-like pear-shaped body, four strings and a tenor banjo neck. It is possible that similar instruments were made by other makers such as Lyon and Healy and banjo makers, such as Bacon. In the same period, banjo makers, such as Paramount, built transitional round banjo-like wood-bodied instruments with four strings and tenor banjo necks called tenor harps. From 1927 onwards,

520-444: A tuning of CcGGBD. Eddie Peabody introduced the banjoline on The Banjo Wizardry of Eddie Peabody , with two songs, and recorded two LPs featuring only electric Banjoline for Dot Records entitled Eddie Plays Smoothies and Eddie Plays More Smoothies . This article relating to guitars is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Tenor guitar#Related instruments The tenor guitar or four-string guitar

572-523: A twangy sound that reminded people of its Indian namesake." It is played like a regular guitar. An electric sitar's electronics consist of "Three pickups with individual volume and tone controls are standard, including one pickup over the sympathetic strings." The bridge of the electric sitar is creates the sound of a sitar. Like electric guitars, made by Fender especially, the neck of a sitar is usually "made of bolt-on, hard maple wood with an optional mini-harp." The sitar also has 13 drone strings located above

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624-550: A vibrato bar on the bridge. This allowed players to bend notes. "The contoured body with its beveled corners reduced the chafing on the player's body." It also had cutaway above and below the fretboard to allow players easy access to the top frets. In 1958, Gibson introduced the Explorer and the Flying V. Only about 100 Explorers were produced, and very few of the Flying V. Both were discontinued shortly after. The Flying V did manage to find

676-525: A wider than usual neck to accommodate his fingerstyle playing. Eastwood currently offers several models of electric tenor guitar including the aforementioned Warren Ellis signature model, the semi-hollow Classic 4 Tenor, and the Tenorcaster. Solid body A solid-body musical instrument is a string instrument such as a guitar , bass or violin built without its normal sound box and relying on an electromagnetic pickup system to directly detect

728-408: Is a piece of wood placed on the top surface of the neck, extending from the head to the body. The strings run above the fingerboard. Some fingerboards have frets or bars which the strings are pressed against. This allows musicians to stop the string in the same place. Ebony, rosewood and maple are commonly used to make the fingerboard. Some electric guitar necks do not have a separate piece of wood for

780-424: Is a slightly smaller, four-string relative of the steel-string acoustic guitar or electric guitar . The instrument was initially developed in its acoustic form by Gibson and C.F. Martin so that players of the four-string tenor banjo could double on guitar. 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

832-572: Is often credited as the first to commercially market a solid-body electric guitar, which itself was based on a design by Merle Travis. In the 1940s, Les Paul created a guitar he called the "Log," which came "from the 4" by 4" solid block of pine which the guitarist had inserted between the sawed halves of the body that he'd just dismembered. He then re-joined the neck to the pine log, using some metal brackets." He then put some pickups that he designed on it. He soon went to companies asking if they would buy his guitar. They turned him down. However, after

884-476: The Dixieland jazz revival and the folk music boom. At this time, they were made by makers such as Epiphone, Gibson, Guild, and Gretsch as archtop acoustics and electrics, as well as a range of flat top models by Martin. A Martin 0-18T flattop acoustic tenor guitar was played in the late 1950s by Nick Reynolds of The Kingston Trio . During this period electric tenor guitars were advertised as "lead guitars", although

936-422: The 1920s. "Big" Mike McKendrick both managed and played with Louis Armstrong 's bands while "Little" Mike McKendrick played with various bands, including Tony Parenti . The Delmore Brothers were a very influential pioneering country music duo from the early 1930s to the late 1940s that featured the tenor guitar. The Delmore Brothers were one of the original country vocal harmonizing sibling acts that established

988-532: The 1930s. Tenor guitars initially came to significant commercial prominence in the late 1920s and early 1930s as tenor banjos were slowly being replaced by six-string guitars in jazz bands and dance orchestras. Tenor banjo players could double on tenor guitars to get a guitar sound without having to learn the six-string guitar. Two of the McKendrick brothers, both named Mike – "Big" Mike and "Little" Mike – doubled on tenor banjo and tenor guitar in jazz bands dating from

1040-437: The 1930s. Common woods used in the construction of solid body instruments are ash, alder, maple, mahogany, korina, spruce, rosewood, and ebony. The first two make up the majority of solid body electric guitars. Solid body instruments have some of the same features as acoustic string instruments. Like a typical string instrument, they have a neck with tuners for the strings, a bridge and a fingerboard (or fretboard). The fretboard

1092-524: The 1950s and 1960s. National, formed by the Dopyera Brothers, also made significant numbers of resonator tenor and plectrum guitars between the 1920s and 1940s. Dobro , another company associated with the Dopyera Brothers, as well as National, also built various resonator tenor guitar models. In 1934, Gibson introduced an acoustic archtop tenor guitar, the TG-50, based on the acoustic archtop six-string model,

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1144-565: The EB-3L. Gibson also created the Thunderbird in 1963, which complemented the Firebird. It had the 34" scale for the neck. This was the same scale as the Fender basses. Other companies have created designs that are different from the Fender and Gibson models. Electric mandolins are similar to electric violins because they traditionally have one pickup. Epiphone marketed an electric mandolin called

1196-406: The Eddie Freeman Special are now very rare and are consequently highly valuable. As the six-string guitar eventually became more popular in bands in the 1930s and 1940s, tenor guitars became less frequently played, although some tenor guitar models had been made in very large numbers throughout this period and are now still common. Tenor guitars came to prominence again in the 1950s and 1960s amid

1248-592: The Fender Telecaster electric guitar became popular, the Gibson company contacted him and had him endorse a model named after him, the "Les Paul" model. It came out in 1952. While Les Paul was looking for a manufacturer for his log, Leo Fender was working on the Fender Telecaster . It was released in 1950. The Telecaster had a "basic, single- cutaway solid slab of ash for a body and separate screwed-on maple neck

1300-696: The L-50, with its production run lasting until 1958. In 1936 Gibson introduced the world's first commercially successful electric Spanish-style guitar, the ES-150. In early 1937 Gibson also began shipping two other versions of the ES-150: a tenor guitar (the EST-150, with four strings and a 23" scale, renamed the ETG-150 in 1940) and a plectrum version (the EPG-150, with a 27" scale). The ETG-150,

1352-613: The Les Paul was put back into production in 1968 because Blues and Hard Rock guitarists liked the sound of the Les Pauls. The SG and the Les Paul are still in production today. Fender and Gibson went on to make other well-known models. Gibson made the Melody Maker and the Firebird . Fender later created the Jazzmaster , and Jaguar . Some of the designs that Gibson and Fender created provide

1404-475: The Mandobird IV and VIII, IV and VIII standing for four and eight strings respectively. They usually have a bolt on neck and a rosewood inlay. The solid body electric violin is different from the traditional violin because it does not have a hollow body and has a "Piezo Pickup with Passive Volume and Tone Controls." These features allow it to be amplified. The body is made of wood, usually maple. The top of

1456-504: The basis for many guitars made by various manufacturers today. Woods typically used to make the body of the bass are alder, maple, or mahogany. The double bass was seen as very bulky and not as easy to carry as other string instruments. Paul Tutmarc built an electronic bass that was played the same way as a guitar. This bass was called the Audiovox Model 736 Electronic Bass. "About 100 Audiovox 736 basses were made, and their distribution

1508-508: The early 21st century, with companies such as Fender beginning production of a tenor version of their Telecaster model. Tenor guitars are normally tuned in fifths, C 3 − G 3 − D 4 − A 4 , using the same tuning as the tenor banjo , mandola , or viola . Also common are tuning one octave below standard violin tuning, G 2 − D 3 −A 3 − E 4 , which is typical of the tenor banjo in Irish folk music or "octave mandolin," and

1560-414: The fingerboard surface. All the solid bodies have variations in scale length or, the length of the strings from the nut to the bridge. The action, or the height of the strings from the fingerboard, is adjustable on solid body instruments. Most solid bodies have controls for volume and tone. Some have an electronic preamplifier with equalization for low, middle, and high frequencies. These are used to shape

1612-547: The first models of solid-body electric guitar, which may otherwise be claimed to be the first commercially successful solid-body instruments. While noting this, it will be assumed that electric lap steels without sounding boards are solid-body instruments for the purposes of this article. The first commercially successful solid-body instrument was the Rickenbacker frying pan lap steel guitar, produced from 1931 to 1939. The first commercially available non lap steel electric guitar

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1664-609: The four treble guitar strings. Another 1930s band that featured the tenor guitar was the Hoosier Hotshots , commonly considered the creators of mid-western rural jazz. Their leader, Ken Trietsch , played the tenor guitar, as well as doubling on the tuba . In the early 1930s Selmer Guitars in Paris manufactured four-string guitars based on guitar designs by the Italian luthier Mario Maccaferri that they marketed to banjo players for use as

1716-712: The mold for later similar acts, such as the Louvin Brothers , and even later, The Everly Brothers . The younger of the Delmore brothers, Rabon , played the tenor guitar as an accompaniment to his older brother, Alton 's, six-string guitar. Rabon favored the Martin 0-18T tenor guitar and the Louvin Brothers later recorded a tribute album to the Delmores that featured Rabon's Martin 0-18T tenor played by mandolinist Ira Louvin, but tuned as

1768-408: The normal tenor guitar with its high A string while till using the same cord shaped familiar to tenor banjoists. Selmer heavily promoted the guitar through Melody Maker and Eddie Freeman even wrote a special tune for it called "In All Sincerity". However, the guitar was not commercially successful in the 1930s, and many were subsequently converted to much more valuable six-string models. Originals of

1820-494: The rationale for this is not now clear. A major player of the electric tenor as a lead guitarist in the bebop and rhythm and blues styles from the 1940s to the 1970s was the jazz guitarist Tiny Grimes , who recorded with Cats and the Fiddle , Charlie Parker , Art Tatum , and others. Grimes used DGBE "Chicago" tuning on his tenor guitars, rather than traditional CGDA tuning. Since 2001, there has been an increased interest in

1872-418: The six strings that reach from the fretboard to the bridge. Electric violas are designed similar to electric violins. They usually have the same features. Electric cellos are similar to regular cellos, but they have a smaller body. Some electric cellos have no body branching out from the middle where the strings are. Some electric cellos have the out line of the traditional body around the middle, creating

1924-486: The so-called "Chicago tuning", D 3 − G 3 − B 3 − E 4 , the same as the top four strings of a standard guitar, or the "baritone ukulele ," a slightly smaller instrument usually strung with nylon strings. The "plectrum guitar" is a four-stringed guitar with a scale length of 26 to 27 inches (66 to 69 cm) and tunings usually based on the plectrum banjo , C 3 − G 3 − B 3 − D 4 or D 3 − G 3 − B 3 − D 4 . They are also commonly tuned like

1976-555: The songs "Nookie" , "The One" , "Full Nelson" , and "Stalemate" using a 4-string "Cremona" tenor guitar made by Master guitars. In April 2022, he commissioned PRS Guitars to make a custom four-string guitar. Prominent U.K. users of the tenor guitar include the Lakeman brothers, Seth Lakeman and Sean Lakeman, and John McCusker and Ian Carr , who both play with the Kate Rusby Band. Irish folk artist Yawning Chasm primarily uses

2028-443: The sound along with the aid of the main instrument amplifier. Amplifiers allow solid body instruments to be heard at high volumes when desired. Solid-body instruments : Solid-body instruments do not include : Electric lap steel guitars without sounding boards are considered to be solid-body instruments by some authorities, and not by others. This has a major effect on some claims of historical priority, as they predate

2080-565: The tenor guitar, as evidenced by an increasing number of manufacturers, such as Eastwood Guitars , Blueridge, Gold Tone, Artist Guitars, Canora, Thomann, Harley Benton, and Ibanez , offering tenor guitar models, and a greater number of specialist luthiers now building custom tenor guitar models or offering to modify existing instruments into tenor guitars. Contemporary players of the tenor guitar include Neko Case , Josh Rouse , Joel Plaskett , Adam Gnade , Ani DiFranco , Carrie Rodriguez , Joe Craven , and Dhani Harrison . Jason Molina played

2132-602: The tenor guitar. Since 2010, Astoria, Oregon, has hosted an annual Tenor Guitar Gathering, on the basis of which some call it the "unofficial Tenor Guitar Capital of the World." Warren Ellis plays a tenor guitar on the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds album Push the Sky Away , and has custom tenor guitars built by Eastwood Guitars , with a shape modeled after a Fender Mustang but with

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2184-475: The two highest courses consist of two single strings. The Banjoline was intended to be tuned like a plectrum banjo (from low to high, CGBD). The strings were also described as octave base, unison third, single, second and first. The pair of strings on the lowest course consists of one low C and another C an octave above it. The strings in the next highest course are tuned to the same G. The next two courses consist of single strings tuned to B and D. This makes for

2236-526: The two model names had no model name on the head stock and are now referred to as 'No Casters"). Fender also produced a one pickup version called the Fender Esquire starting in 1950. These were followed by the Gibson Les Paul in 1952. The solid-body electric guitar is recognisable and features in rock, metal, blues, and country music. The first commercially available solid-body electric Spanish guitar

2288-432: The very first true wood-bodied acoustic tenor guitars appeared as production instruments made by both Gibson and Martin. Almost all the major guitar makers, including Epiphone , Kay , Gretsch , Guild and National Reso-Phonic , have manufactured tenor (and plectrum) guitars as production instruments at various times. Budget tenor guitars by makers such as Harmony , Regal and Stella , were produced in large numbers in

2340-434: The vibrations of the strings; these instruments are usually plugged into an instrument amplifier and loudspeaker to be heard. Solid-body instruments are preferred in situations where acoustic feedback may otherwise be a problem and are inherently both less expensive to build and more rugged than acoustic electric instruments. Recognisable solid body instruments are the electric guitar and electric bass , developed in

2392-470: The violin might be made out of flame maple or solid spruce. The body of the electric violin compared to an acoustic violin has cutaways that allow for weight reduction and a lighter body. While a regular sitar has 21, 22, or 23 strings an electric sitar is designed similar to a guitar. It first appeared in 1967 when "Vinnie Bell invented the Coral electric sitar, a small six-string guitar-like instrument producing

2444-674: Was also produced by the Rickenbacker/Electro company, starting in 1931 The model was referred to as the "electric Spanish Guitar" to distinguish it from the "Hawaiian" lap steel. The first commercially successful solid-body electric guitar was the Fender Broadcaster in 1950. A trademark dispute with the Gretsch Corporation who marketed a line of Broadcaster drums led to a name change to the current designation, Fender Telecaster in 1951 (Transition instruments produced between

2496-513: Was apparently limited to the Seattle area." The idea did not catch on and the company folded. In the late 1940s when dance bands downsized, guitar players who lost their positions playing guitar were told they could play double bass. However, "they did not want to take the time to learn upright technique. They needed a bass they could play like a guitar-a fretted bass." Leo Fender heard these criticisms and took his telecaster model and adopted it to

2548-650: Was designed to look like a violin. It had a single pickup. It also had an endpin which allowed the bass player to play it vertically. In 1959 Gibson created the EB-0 which was designed to complement the Les Paul Junior . In 1961 it was redesigned to match the SG guitar and the EB-) designation was retained. A two pickup version was later introduced called the EB-3 and a long scale variant was made called

2600-518: Was geared to mass production. It had a slanted pickup mounted into a steel bridge-plate carrying three adjustable bridge-saddles." Its color was blond. It is considered "the world's first commercially marketed solid body electric guitar." . The Telecaster continues to be manufactured today. The follow-up to the Telecaster, the Stratocaster , appeared in 1954. It had three pickups instead of two. It had

2652-499: Was in continuous production until 1972. In the mid-1950s electric solid-body tenor guitar models began to appear from companies such as Gibson, Gretsch, Guild, and Epiphone. These were mostly produced as one-off custom instruments but, for a short time in 1955, Gretsch manufactured an electric solid-bodied tenor guitar, the Gretsch 6127 DuoJet. Renewed interest in the tenor guitar led to the introduction of new solid-body electric models in

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2704-618: Was produced by the Rickenbacker company in 1931. The Songster electric guitar was made between 1936 and 1939 by the Slingerland Musical Instrument Manufacturing Company in Chicago, Illinois. Also it is reported that around the same time (1940) a solid body was created by Jamaican musician and inventor Hedley Jones . Les Paul, a guitarist, is often credited with inventing the first solid body, but Fender

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