Are Smaller Guitars 'O' Parlor, etc. Usually Short Scale...

[Mr. Jelly]

Smaller well-built guitars are often the shorter of the two scales. In today's guitar world lesser expensive guitars often run the longer of the two scales to help drive the thicker tops and thicker finishes. The old school standards don't apply as much anymore.

[RLetson]

Of course there's such a thing as a parlor guitar--though from a linguist's or lexicographer's point of view, the sense of that term has shifted around, almost to the point where its usefulness has nearly vanished.

The guitars that were being described as "parlor guitars" when I first came across them at 1980s guitar shows were 1) smaller than the Martin 0, and 2) built between around 1890 and 1930. They were not, as far as I can tell, characterized as "parlor guitars" in builders's catalogues (Lyon & Healy/Washburn, Regal, Bacon & Day, Bay State, et al.). Instead, that descriptor was used by modern dealers and collectors to distinguish older, smaller guitars from (usually) later design formulas. Interestingly, small Martins (size 1 and 2) were not usually called "parlors" but whatever their official Martin model number was. It was the non-Martins of similar size and vintage that got labeled "parlors." And they were really just the standard-size instruments of their periods, retroactively rebranded.

I confess that I still sniff at the practice of calling anything smaller than a dreadnought or jumbo a "parlor" model. But then, I'm a former English teacher and thus used to being ignored when I'm not being scorned for being a linguistic-historical purist, grammar nazi, and general fussbudget.

[jaymarsch]

I have a 14 fret 00 that has a 25.4” scale length. It sounds divine in dropped tunings. It’s got great bass response and is very resonant across the spectrum. Not the norm for a classic 00 but a wonderful combo nonetheless.
Best,
Jayne

[Jeff Scott]

Originally Posted by Okotok

I built a "parlour" guitar from the Ted Davis plan some years ago. It is a 1-18 which was the largest guitar Martin made way back when. I built it on a lark for a 2" x 4" contest at my woodworking club out of a carefully selected, 8' pine stud from Home Despot. Resawed the back, top and sides and had to add a little to the sides for width. Epoxied four hacksaw blades on edge into the neck to keep it straight and was able to use up to 20% of "other" woods, hence the blackwood fingerboard, bridge and headplate. Ended up sounding great and I play it a lot many years later! Had enough leftover wood to build a simple stand too.

Nice.

Don't give Andy Taylor, er, Powers any ideas.

[stephenT]

Originally Posted by RLetson

I confess that I still sniff at the practice of calling anything smaller than a dreadnought or jumbo a "parlor" model. But then, I'm a former English teacher and thus used to being ignored when I'm not being scorned for being a linguistic-historical purist, grammar nazi, and general fussbudget.

WE need the teacher to set these guitar body size/parlor terms straight.

I'm a 00 player and I consider a 00 standard size, certainly not a parlor. If we're wanting to use parlor as a size designation, in my mind that's a guitar smaller than a Martin "0" size.

"The parlor was a formal room for receiving guests mostly in houses built before WW1. The living room in such houses was for the family to use daily. There was typically a formal dining room adjacent to the parlor".

[RLetson]

A modest thread diversion (and reconvergence) about domestic spaces and their names.

There are interesting socio-economic and regional angles to how we arrange our homes and name the spaces. In modern (post-WW1) American English, the usual term for the place where the family relaxes and entertains guests is probably the "living room," though when I was growing up in 1950s NYS, it might also be the "front room" (reflecting the physical layout of a single-family home). Older folk might call that space a parlor, and by the 1960s, newer houses further divided that function into a "family room" and a (more formal) "living room." My observation from our house-hunting days is that in many pre-WW1 houses the parlor was divided from the dining room by pocket doors, and that division signalled functional/formal divides: the parlor was preserved for meeting guests, while informal-family activities might focus on the kitchen. (Thus phrases like "kitchen-table issues" in politics.)

In the UK, there's an interesting range of terms for rooms, also signalling socio-economic divides. Upscale homes could have not only parlours (for conversation--*parler*) but sitting rooms and drawing (from "withdrawing") rooms where non-family members might be entertained (or wait to be met, having been admitted by a servant). Sometime after WW1, the middle-class living room became the "lounge." There's also the phrase "best room," which suggests a divide between ordinary living space and that which is felt to be presentable to outsiders and/or one's social betters.

Now, finally, connecting all this to guitars. There was a branch of domestic music-making that included with middle-class folk but crossed social levels to include the well-to-do, and some of it involved the guitar, which was an instrument appropriate for educated women and manageable for private home performance. (See also "piano bench musc.") People well-off enough to have a parlor (even if not big enough to hold a piano) were the target market for such music, and the guitar was considered a genteel enough instrument for ladies to play at home--in the parlor. (A much more intimate space than those used for "chamber music.")

John Renbourn did degree-research work in American parlor music for guitar--at an American Fingerstyle Guitar Festivals in Milwaukee, he distributed copies of the sheet music for Henry Worrall's arrangements of "Spanish Fandango" and "The Battle of Sebastapol" (published in the 1850s). These tunes entered the folk world as "Spanish Flang Dang" and "Vastapol"--along with their open tunings.

See https://www.kansasmemory.org/blog/post/105123157.

The guitars on which this music was played were the standard guitars of the second half of the 19th century--what can be properly be called "parlor guitars," though the same instruments (or less expensive models) were also played by working people of all kinds, as documented by any number of period photos of lumberjacks, miners, and country folk. (I can spot Washburn models in seconds.)

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by LHawes

...and 12 fretters? Or do they vary determined by taste and preference?

Thank You

Hi LH…
I've seen, handled, and owned smaller bodied in both short scale (Gibson scale to some), and full scale (25.4")

I own an 18 yr old fanned fret OM which is 25" (1st string) to 25.5" (6th string).

I own a 000-18 (Recording King) which is full-scale.

[Sarhog]

Originally Posted by RLetson

A modest thread diversion (and reconvergence) about domestic spaces and their names.

There are interesting socio-economic and regional angles to how we arrange our homes and name the spaces. In modern (post-WW1) American English, the usual term for the place where the family relaxes and entertains guests is probably the "living room," though when I was growing up in 1950s NYS, it might also be the "front room" (reflecting the physical layout of a single-family home). Older folk might call that space a parlor, and by the 1960s, newer houses further divided that function into a "family room" and a (more formal) "living room." My observation from our house-hunting days is that in many pre-WW1 houses the parlor was divided from the dining room by pocket doors, and that division signalled functional/formal divides: the parlor was preserved for meeting guests, while informal-family activities might focus on the kitchen. (Thus phrases like "kitchen-table issues" in politics.)

In the UK, there's an interesting range of terms for rooms, also signalling socio-economic divides. Upscale homes could have not only parlours (for conversation--*parler*) but sitting rooms and drawing (from "withdrawing") rooms where non-family members might be entertained (or wait to be met, having been admitted by a servant). Sometime after WW1, the middle-class living room became the "lounge." There's also the phrase "best room," which suggests a divide between ordinary living space and that which is felt to be presentable to outsiders and/or one's social betters.

Now, finally, connecting all this to guitars. There was a branch of domestic music-making that included with middle-class folk but crossed social levels to include the well-to-do, and some of it involved the guitar, which was an instrument appropriate for educated women and manageable for private home performance. (See also "piano bench musc.") People well-off enough to have a parlor (even if not big enough to hold a piano) were the target market for such music, and the guitar was considered a genteel enough instrument for ladies to play at home--in the parlor. (A much more intimate space than those used for "chamber music.")

John Renbourn did degree-research work in American parlor music for guitar--at an American Fingerstyle Guitar Festivals in Milwaukee, he distributed copies of the sheet music for Henry Worrall's arrangements of "Spanish Fandango" and "The Battle of Sebastapol" (published in the 1850s). These tunes entered the folk world as "Spanish Flang Dang" and "Vastapol"--along with their open tunings.

See https://www.kansasmemory.org/blog/post/105123157.

The guitars on which this music was played were the standard guitars of the second half of the 19th century--what can be properly be called "parlor guitars," though the same instruments (or less expensive models) were also played by working people of all kinds, as documented by any number of period photos of lumberjacks, miners, and country folk. (I can spot Washburn models in seconds.)

I appreciate you taking the time to post this.