Tab for 10-string classical guitar

[tkoehler1]

I've been looking at those Chinese 10 string classicals that Cathedral Guitars sells. They are not too expensive and I love the sound of the extra basses. I'm thinking about buying one.

However, I am a part time guitarist and I do not read music. I would need 10 string tab. I've gone to all the 10 string sites on the internet and while the sheet music is out there none of it is tab. Does anyone know where I can find some?

What I'm looking for is basically what bachoholic (an AGF member here) did for me for a 6 string guitar. With his publications, you get the music and tab, and as a plus a video on YouTube showing you how it all goes together.

Fyi here's a page from Cathedral's website:

http://www.m221b.com/CathedralGuitar.../CG125CEL.html

Here's what it sounds like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klsEoT3SAPg

Thanks for any responses!

TK

[dkstott]

I've never seen any sheet music written for 10 string guitars... your might try and see if any of the harp guitar sheet music will work for you with some modification

Personally, 6 strings are a guitar are tough enough for me to handle... I'm not sure my brain could handle 10 strings... LOL

[Gitfiddlemann]

I would really like to get a 10 string guitar someday. It’s definitely on my bucket list.
I’m particularly drawn to the 10 string innovation and recordings of the late classical guitarist Narciso Yepes, who used one extensively in his career. Even though there wasn’t much material specifically written for 10 string guitar, he came up with a clever way to tune all 10 strings so that each note played on the traditional 6 strings “down below” would have a note in the extra set of strings that would resonate sympathetically with it. That made everything he played, including standard fare, much more resonant sounding.
This was the tuning innovation he came up with for his 10 string, from what I can recall reading about it:
He figured out that, on the standard 6 string guitar, sympathetic string resonance from the bass strings are only achieved with 4 treble notes: D, A, E and B. (Meaning, when you play any of these notes on the treble strings, at least one open bass string will start to vibrate sympathetically at the same frequency and make the note sound fuller and more resonant.)
Thus, the other remaining 8 notes: C, C#, D#, F, F#, G, G# and A#, or their enharmonic equivalents, i.e. Db, Gb etc..) don’t benefit from the same resonant effect and sound drier and more dampened than D, A, E and B. (You can easily verify this on a 6 string guitar).
So, by adding 4 strings and tuning them a special way, Yepes was able to get all notes to sound just as resonant as D, A, E and B do on a regular guitar.
The tuning he came up with on the extra 4 strings to achieve that is:
String 7: low C (that’s the string with the lowest pitch and thickest diameter)
String 8: Bb (A#)
String 9: Ab (G#)
String 10: Gb (F#)

So, bottom line is, getting back to your statement about not being able to read music and needing TAB written for 10 string. My point is that, if you tune the way Yepes did, you can still get an added “resonant” bonus by playing regular TAB material that you do have for the 6 string guitar. In other words, don’t feel bad about your lack of ability in the standard notation reading department. You can still get a lot of enjoyment out of playing your 10 string with sheet music material that is more comfortable for you.
In actual fact, there isn’t a whole lot of music that is written out for 10 string to my knowledge. (A few by Yepes, but most of it looks just like regular notation).

Anyway, good luck with it. I’m envious, and hopefully I’ll be able to get one too some day. Thanks for the heads up on Cathedral!

For additional info, here is a notation diagram of the actual open string tuning used by Yepes on his 10 stringer:

Left to right:
E B G D A E C A#(Bb) G#(Ab) F#(Gb)