Discussion Utilisateur:Grippeminaud

La guitare ténor est est une version plus petite à quatre corde des guitares acoustiques ou électriques. L'instrument (dans sa forme acoustique) a été développé afin que les joueurs de banjo ténor à quatre corde puissent jouer de la guitare sans avoir à changer leur technique de jeu. Plus tard, des modèles élecriques ont aussi étés fabriqués.

Structure

Les guitares ténors sont des instruments de musique à quatre cordes en forme de guitare, parfois le corps est en forme de poire comme un luth, ou encore plus rarement avec un corps rond comme un banjo. Elles peuvent être acoustiques et/ou électriques. Les guitares ténors ont habituellement une longueur du sillon de tête au chevalet de 58,42 cm.

Histoire et développement

Tous les grands luthiers, comme Gibson, Epiphone, Martin, Gretsch, Guild et National, ont fabriqué des guitares ténor. Des fabricants comme Gibson proposaient même la version ténor de leurs guitares à six cordes sans supplément de prix par rapport à la guitare de base. Gibson avait aussi une gamme de guitare ténor vendues sous sa marque "discount" Kalamazoo. Des guitares ténors à bas prix produites par des fabricants comme Harmony, Regal et Stella, furent produites en grandes quantités dans les années 50 et 60 et sont encore largement répandues. Les guitares ténor furent fabriquées sans interruption par gibson et Martin depuis les années 20 jusqu'au années 70.

Accord

Les guitare ténor sont habituellement accordées à la quinte (habituellement CGDA, comme le banjo ténor ou l'alto, bien que d'autres accors soient possibles, comme l'accord "guitare" ou "Chicago" (DGBE), l'accord "irlandais" ou "octave mandolin" (GDAE) et plusieursaccords ouverts, pour le jeu en slide.

L'instrument est aussi bien adapté au jeu rythmique qu'aux solos.

Instruments apparentés

La plectrum guitar est un instrument à quatre cordes proche de la guitare ténor avec une longueur sillon de tête/chavalet de 66 à 68,5 cm et un accord habituellement basé sur le banjo, CGBD ou DGBD. Les plectrum guitars sont aussi très adaptées à l'accord "guitar" DGBE à cause de leur longueur sillon de tête/chevalet importante, mais sont moins adaptées à l'accord CDGA à cause de la corde A très aigüe. Les plectrum guitars ne furent pas produites en aussi grand nombre que les guitares ténor, et sont aujourd'hui plus rares.

Les plectrum guitars jouaient le même rôle pour les joueurs de banjo que les guitares ténor, mais étaient moins beaucoup moins répandus. Un des joueurs les plus connus de plectrum guitar durant le "Jazz Age" (1918-1929) était Eddie Condon, qui débutat au banjo dans les années 20 puis changea pour une plectrum guitar Gibson L7 dans les années 30 qu'il conserva durant toute sa carrière jusque dans les années 60.

Use and performers

Tenor guitars are now very closely associated with the tenor banjo with its similar standard CGDA fifths tuning and they 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. This is a practice still carried out by many contemporary jazz banjo players. This period is generally regarded as the initial "golden age" of the tenor guitar.

Two of the McKendrick brothers, confusingly both named Mike - "Big" Mike and "Little" Mike, doubled on tenor banjo and tenor guitar in jazz bands dating from the 1920s. According to Bob Brozman in his book on National instruments - The History and Artistry of National Instruments, they both played National tenor guitars and they are both shown in the book in photos with their National tenor guitars.

"Big" Mike McKendrick both managed and played with Louis Armstrong bands while 'Little' Mike McKendrick played with various bands, including Tony Parenti. Brozman's book also features photos of Hawaiian music bands that include players with both National tenor and plectrum guitars.

The Delmore Brothers were a very influential pioneering country music duet from the early 1930s to the late 1940s that featured the tenor guitar. The Delmore Brothers were one of the original country vocal harmonising sibling acts that established the mould 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 favoured the Martin 0-18T tenor guitar and the Louvin Brothers later recorded a famous tribute album to the Delmores which featured the Martin 0-18T tenor that had been played by Rabon.

Another interesting 1930s band to feature the tenor guitar was the Hoosier Hotshots, considered to be the creators of mid-western rural jazz. Their leader, Ken Trietsch, played the tenor guitar, as well as doubling on the tuba.

A very old musical style called Texas fiddling uses the tenor guitar as part of its rhythm accompaniment. Texas fiddle music has had a very long continuous history which still continues strongly to this day. Annual old time fiddling contests have been held in Weiser, Idaho, since 1914, but the current contests date from 1953. The music in these contests usually strongly feature the tenor guitar. The tenor guitar of choice for this style seems to be the Martin 0-18T.

Well known exponents of the tenor guitar in Texas fiddle music are Jerry Thomassen, Al Mouledous and Gary Lee Moore. Jerry Thomassen has a signature tenor guitar named after him that is built by luthier, Steve Parks. Gary Lee Moore has produced an excellent teaching resource for playing the tenor guitar as backup for Texas fiddling, entitled, Getting Started in Fiddle Backup, obtainable as a free pdf download - see External Links.

In the 1930s Selmer Guitars in Paris manufactured four string guitars based on guitar designs by the famous Italian luthier Mario Maccaferri that were to be marketed to banjo players as a second six string guitar-like instrument. The six string versions of these guitars had been made very famous by French Gypsy jazz guitarist, Django Reinhardt in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.

The two main four string models offered by Selmer included a regular tenor guitar, with a 23 inch scale length, tuned CGDA, and the Eddie Freeman Special, with a larger body and a longer scale length, using a reentrant CGDA tuning. The Eddie Freeman Special had been designed by English tenor banjoist Eddie Freeman to have a better six string guitar sonority for rhythm guitar work than the normal tenor guitar with its very high A string. However, it was still tuned CGDA so that it could still be played by tenor banjoists.

The Eddie Freeman Special was based on a six string model and it had a larger six string body and a six string scale length of 25.25 inches, rather than the tenor's smaller body and normal 23 inch scale length. The CGDA tuning used was re-entrant with the C and D tuned in the same octave and the G and the A tuned in the same octave, lowering the overall tone. The tuning and scale length give this very unusual four string guitar a sonority that is very close to that of the six string guitar, compared to a regular tenor guitar.

Unfortunately, this guitar was not commercially successful in the 1930s due to concerted resistance by the British six string guitar fraternity, particularly Ivor Mairaints. Many were subsequently converted to much more valuable six string models because of the Django Reinhardt connection. Originals of the Eddie Freeman Special are now very rare and are consequently highly valuable.

Recently, modern Maccaferri-style luthiers, such as the late David Hodson in the UK and Shelley Park in Canada, as well as others, have started building this four string model again due to demand from their customers. Many have now been made and they are becoming more widely played. They are considered to have a beautiful sound and offer a very broad range of tuning possibilities including CGDA, GDAE, DGBE, CGBD, DGBD and ADGB.

As the six string guitar eventually became more popular in bands in the 1930s and 1940s, tenor guitars became much less 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, possibly due to the effects of 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/or electrics, as well as a range of flat top models by Martin.

Around this time in the 1950s and 1960s, electric tenor guitars were also referred to as "lead guitars," although the rationale for this is not now clear, unless it was for marketing purposes. Lead playing on a six string guitar often involves just using its top four strings. A major player of the electric tenor as a lead guitarist in the bebop style from the 1940s to the 1970s was the brilliant jazz guitarist Tiny Grimes, whose recordings with the The Cats and The Fiddle and others are well worth investigating.

The Martin 0-18T flat top acoustic tenor guitar was made very famous in the late 1950s by Nick Reynolds of The Kingston Trio. The acoustic tenor guitar became a popular instrument in the folk music boom of this period, particularly this model. In 1997, as a tribute to the Kingston Trio, Martin re-issued 34 limited edition 40th-anniversary commemorative sets (40 sets had been planned, but only 34 orders were received and executed) of the three main instruments used by the Kingston Trio to celebrate their founding in 1957. The commemorative set included a custom Martin Kingston Trio KT-18T tenor guitar with "The Kingston Trio" and “1957-1997” engraved on the fingerboard in mother-of-pearl and its label was signed by C. F. Martin IV, the CEO of Martin Guitars and 4 of the surviving members of the Kingston Trio.

In 1968 the famous plectrum banjoist Eddie Peabody designed a six string, four course, electric guitar-like instrument with a plectrum scale length of 26 inches and plectrum tuning of CGDB. It was called the Banjoline and it was mainly manufactured by Rickenbacker. The Rickenbacker version had two pick ups and volume and tone controls.

The six strings were grouped into sets of four courses with the C and the G strings doubled in octaves and the D and the B strings as single strings. Due to its doubled strings and electric pick ups, its sound was similar to that of the doubled strings of the twelve string electric guitar that had been made famous by Rickenbacker as played by George Harrison of The Beatles and Roger McGuinn of The Byrds.

Unfortunately, although the Banjoline was made in quite large numbers, it was not commercially successful at this time. However, it remains a fascinating instrument with a unique sound and a wide range of very interesting tuning possibilities. LP recordings of Eddie Peabody playing banjo classics on the Banjoline were recorded and can still sometimes be found.

Current use

In more recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in the tenor guitar and individual specialist luthiers, such as Joel Eckhaus of Earnest Instruments, now commonly adapt or build them as custom instruments for their customers. They are now even beginning to be mass manufactured again, such as the models offered by Gold Tone Instruments. Modern players of the tenor guitar include Neko Case, Josh Rouse and Ani Di Franco and they are 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. On the video for "Club Date: Elvis Costello & the Imposters Live in Memphis" he is seen playing a Gretsch archtop single cutaway tenor guitar.

They find most use in their original role as rhythm instruments in jazz and blues, as well as combining with six string guitars in jazz, blues, folk or ethnic music settings. Being tuned in fifths, they also work well with both mandolin family and violin family instruments. They can also fit into the mould of 'ethnic' sounding instruments, such as the bouzouki.

Tenor guitars can be very difficult to locate since they were mostly manufactured in the United States. Up until relatively recently they were usually regarded as musical oddities with little value but now they are becoming very attractive to both players and collectors, particularly the National resonator instruments. Check out http://www.tenorguitar.com for comprehensive listings of sources of tenor guitars - both old and new.

Production tenor guitars by Gibson and Martin are still generally available, such as Gibson's ETG-150 electric/acoustic tenor guitar and Martin's 0-18T acoustic tenor guitar. Original tenor guitars in good condition by any of the major guitar makers are considered very desirable, both as instruments for playing, and as interesting collectibles in their own right. Some specially ordered custom tenor guitar models can be extremely rare since only one of them may have been manufactured.

Prominent UK users of the tenor guitar include the Lakeman brothers, Seth Lakeman and Sean Lakeman.

Terry Bohner, a character in the film A Mighty Wind, uses a tenor guitar.

Further reading

• Richards, Tobe A. (2007). The Tenor Guitar Chord Bible: Standard & Irish Tuning 2,880 Chords. United Kingdom: Cabot Books. ISBN 978-1-906207-05-2.  — A comprehensive chord dictionary instructional guide.

External links

• Tenorguitar.com
• Chordfinder for Tenorguitar and other four-string instruments
• Tenor guitars and ukuleles page from Seth Austen & Beverly Woods site
• The Delmore Brothers official site
• The Delmore Brothers - A History page from Native Ground Music site
• A German tenor guitar site
• The Tenor Guitar Registry - a forum for discussing anything to do with the tenor guitar
• Steve Parks, Tenor Guitar Luthier
• Joel Eckhaus, Tenor Guitar Luthier
• The Tenor Guitar - Getting Started in Fiddle Backup
• Players Vintage Instruments - a great on-line source of vintage tenor guitars
• Soares'y Guitars produces an interesting range of small workshop handcrafted flat top, archtop and solid-bodied tenor guitars that are both excellent quality and great value and are highly commended by their owners
• Steve Pyott's Tenor Guitar Collection, also featured in tenorguitar.com