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Old 03-22-2018, 01:21 PM
usefultree usefultree is offline
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Default NK Forster Session King Tenor Guitar ~ as new

[...] "THIS ONE GOES TO"

Getting this to the AGF audience ahead of posts elsewhere ~ a Forster Session King tenor guitar on offer. Base specs exactly the same as the one in this video (a.k.a. "THAT video") ~ khaya b|s cedrela top, all that ~ but goes to 11 w/ some upgrades and rare tweaks to the SK program ~ backstrap, side soundport, ebony fretboard, pick-stitch herringbone inlay at the rosette, and black tuner buttons (that Nigel sourced w/ some well appreciated effort). SOLD.

Finished and delivered November 2017 during Nigel's last Leipzig season, if you're really burning for that "Saxony" maker's mark. For North American lookers this one's already pulled across the pond, customs and all.

24.75" scale length. I play in fiddle crosstunings GDGD, ADAD, GDAD, DDAD, etc., more than CGDA and fifths tunings ~ and find this scale length quite optimal for the cause.

Re headstock veneer and backstrap, says the maker: "Apart from looking nice, it's the best insurance policy against a head snapping off you can get."

Soundport does what it does ~ projects the sound to the player so they're in on the sonics that usually are advantage audience.

It is an SK ~ the soak of the finish yields a more tactile wood texture than nitro would. This is hand-craft at its most maximal. Also has a magnetic truss rod access cover.

Mint condition, as new. Has about 12 hours time under the thumb since receipt. Environment vigilantly attended to during the winter.

Seeking L O U D

For a couple of years now Nigel has found great traction in the four-stringer he's calling a tenor guitar. More an evolution of his guitzouk design and its Celtic-player lineage ~ that fully realizes the sonic promise of those kits through simplifying them ~ than a direct descendant of a tenor guitar from, say, the 1920s.

Excels strummed, particularly if your game is to churn reel and raga. As gobsmack as all his kits are, there's a teardown simplicity to the SK tenor that recommends it as a flagship piece. This is a true battleship (in the bantam guitzouk-derived box), moreso than any namesake Dreadnought. Raw power, lingering rake, sustain you could hitch a SpaceX payload to and watch it exit the solar system.

With mandolin as my first instrument, and banjo since my primary ~ four strings inboard are my safe room. The SK tenor cuts out the idiomatic extraneousness of the 6stringer, even inside the narrower Celtic line, channels you more to straight drone-chord-melody, and unleashes profound energy there. The 6 string sometimes can get high on its own mellifluousness, you know ~ the tangled yawners in the slush pile of "guitar music". W/ four strings you lose the option to indulge your inner stupid. Even Keith Richards (in)famously dropped a string on his electric to go after those Hill Country licks - even if he lifted the technique. You stumble onto the trick yourself.

But think of those dulcimer or dulcimer derived tones of Carthy's Shearwater, or Mitchell's Blue. (Or how Cordelia's Dad/Tim Eriksen mapped a whole universe inside the former, played on inspired downmountain and roadside finds). The SK tenor guit offers those same equities and enhanced capability to deliver ~ the report, punch and sustain, the Forster L O U D and C L E A R that have become his calling cards in the trade.

Alas, I don't keep a lot on the boat these days - more stridently minimalist - and perhaps let my imagination lap the realities of my dexterity in this case - in ordering this custom SKt; time to cut slingload and get back on the program. (Another unwinding story ~ )

Discovered, when you have the state of the art (as are all NK Forster kits) under the thumb, it's quixotic to have commissioned an instrument the maker himself declares a "banjo killer" - when you're primarily a banjo player (wit) yourself. I'll tell you why ----- it's THAT video again, the recording that launched a thousand orders (so to speak). Late 2016, again glamping for Uncle Sam. Routine looked good on paper, but unmasked as another epic cluster*&@ of crosspurposed mission creeps. You see the youtube posts, entranced. These fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee choreographies in the ring, space-time stretching and contracting around the notes. Those bends at the dusty end. Solace in a bad year. You shake through the present by throwing down for an option on a future self.

Maybe my feedback loops are getting more efficient. Know your patterns ~ before I would've held on to an instr. for years and found the mean, stayed together for the kids, right; now more of a break the chain, a sport fisher's catch and release protocol. Classic first order positive, second order running joke (n.b. the data trail here, here).

Though my interest in the 4stringer also def. informed by the energy the tenor guitar finds in its later American indie contexts ~ Neko Case, Freedy Johnston, et al making great hay w/ the 4string at times in the early aughts, and the foundation stone of Jason Molina's melancholic take on the truer sound ~ from Song:Ohia's "Cabwaylingo" forward, from which some of the best songwriting of this century cascaded.

So there's a modus operanda here to offload the less frequented, and dig into my knowns ~ the 6string guitar, the 5string (and 6string!) banjo, the fiddle. Circle wagons, howl at the moon. Cast off what doesn't serve you the ca. 2018 gurus berate ~ but that's what I think the SK tenor is saying about me. Whose feedback loop is it anyway? You live in power chords, or the broken harmonies of the frailer. You claw and pluck. Commit to it, says the tenor guitar as sphinx: "WORK IT OUT, OR THOU SHALT BE DEVOURED".

SOLD yields an NK Forster SK-tenor around ca. 2016 pricing, no wait list, no NA inbound customs, and the considerable (for the SK line) custom options/upgrades. Buyer covers shipping - I'm open to any carrier (or if a buyer wants to put it on their own preferred carrier account) as long as the service selected gaurantees 3-day or swifter. Includes the Hiscox case, which unlike some of Nigel's other designs with their unique geometries, actually fits accurately in the case.

Soundclip from yours truly



(usual is what it is caveat applies), though I'd recommend Nigel's a/v stack on youtube - particularly the Kimber uploads - if this is all terra incognita for you. His blog also is good hunting - a treasure that at the same time doesn't give the game away - particularly re the tenor guitar and SK wood selections; but I think I'm preaching to the choir (and AGF sponsors) on the latter.

Out of the box pics follow. I may update w/ studio shots (or at least shots taken in a studio) later. Soon to crosspost on another forum and I'll go easy before eyeing other marketplaces.

BTW the dark horse curve of this instr. is the neck. Speaking as a banjo and fiddle and guitar player, this neck is just right.

Last edited by usefultree; 04-22-2018 at 05:24 PM. Reason: SOLD
  #2  
Old 03-26-2018, 06:06 AM
usefultree usefultree is offline
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B^ring u^p m^y P^ost
  #3  
Old 04-03-2018, 08:55 PM
usefultree usefultree is offline
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Parked on the 'verb here for the duration.

Same wonky soundclip, some edge tweaks to the prose.
  #4  
Old 04-22-2018, 05:29 PM
usefultree usefultree is offline
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Been lagging on the crucial update - SOLD on Reverb within hours of posting there. Thanks to the AGF obsesserati for the views and surviving the soundcloud post.
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celtic, forster, loud, reel, tenor

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