Originally Posted by Tahitijack (Post 7023016)

You still might need an amp but some modern day keyboards are pretty light weight especially when you get down to 60 or so keys.

Originally Posted by Driftless (Post 7023077)

Mandocello, a large variety of banjo types, bajo sexto, large array mbira, oud, fretless guitar

Originally Posted by schoolie (Post 7023089)

Chromatic dulcimer

Originally Posted by Bob Womack (Post 7023099)

The harmonium has been edging in with the folk crowd. They are a great accompaniment instrument.

Or you could try cow bell.

Bob

Originally Posted by PineMarten (Post 7023111)

I use a 10 string cittern a fair bit - much the same as the Irish bouzouki, but mine is a little larger than most, 650mm scale and I tune it CGDAD in unison pairs. It's great for accompanying folk songs, and kind of forces me out of imitating too closely other people's guitar arrangements!

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache (Post 7023122)

Guitars are bur one of a large family of musical instruments called "chordophones".

Actually keyboard instruments are chordophones and many guitarists will take a break and use pianos during their act.

Hope that helps.

Originally Posted by Br1ck (Post 7023220)

Octave mandolin comes to mind, but not before a regular mandolin. Why? Play mandolin, show up at a jam and be unique because you can fill a frequency space different from the six guitars that showed up. Then there are all the fiddle tunes you can play. You'll get more chances to play. Not like stand up bass though.

Then all the chords can port over to octave mandolin if you like. One mandolin caveat, bring money.

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa (Post 7023336)

Are you playing solo or with an ensemble, instrumental only or with vocals, and what genre[s] - big difference in terms of the sonic space you need to fill, and the type of instrument[s] you'd find most effective...

Originally Posted by Mandobart (Post 7023409)

Picking up mandolin really boosted my value as a musician to local bands. I went from being one of a few thousand mediocre guitar players to being one of a few dozen mediocre mandolin players.....and I was willing to play genres besides just bluegrass.

Originally Posted by The Watchman (Post 7023557)

Isn't this what a ukulele is for? Its like a 4 string guitar and standard tuning is like a guitar at the fifth fret. A tenor or larger doesnt sound like a toy.

Originally Posted by Snorse (Post 7023674)

Much appreciated! I can't carry a piano (as big as I am), but I do like the idea of a cittern or similar.



Cheers Brick. My Dad was a tremendous mandolin player (as well as fiddle and banjo) and I've inherited his instrument. It's a nameless wonder that he bought at a second hand shop in Hay-on-Wye in the 1960's and I think it's probably Japanese. I'm 'sort of' adept at it but I have massive hands and my paid gigs are all solo. I used to take my mandolin to sessions even though I was invited there for guitar and fiddle, but I was competing with people much more capable so it barely ever came out of the case. Nowadays I live on a tiny Island where there's no sessions to attend, and it's in the attic somewhere.



Yes, I should have been clearer, sorry. All of my paid gigs are solo, and I do about 50/50 originals and covers that range from trad to modern country to folk (Richard Thompson and John Martyn type stuff) and chart songs. I play percussively a lot and switch between fingerstyle and flatpicking and I sing in a baritone although I use my head voice an awful lot too.

That's why I was asking for 'full range', rather than mandolin type register. I do sometimes break out a mandolin (although not in recent years) for something like copperhead road, but I always end up feeling like I can't 'go up' dynamically by bringing the bass in, in say verse two, and I always feel like I should have just used the guitar after I finish!



Where I used to live, there were loads of mandolin players, although less than there were guitarists, and I could never get in sideways on a session because they knew I played fiddle and always asked me to do that instead.



Hmm, not really. I already own and play madolin and banjo, and those don't give me any low end to 'hide' my vocals in in the mix. I always feel quite exposed and wish I'd used the guitar. My daughter had a nice handmade uke, and it's a fine sound, but not what I'm after really, hence the 'full range' part of my question. Tenor 'guitars' are likewise not really what I'm looking for, although Seth Lakeman makes them sound great solo. My voice is heaps lower than his... and I don't have his talent! :D

Originally Posted by FrankHudson (Post 7023708)

It won't visually say "now here's a different instrument" but what you seem to be asking about sonically says baritone guitar to me. I built a baritone (I tuned it Bb to Bb) electric, but didn't use it as much as I thought I would. I do use my Fender Squier electric Bass VI (tuned E to E, one octave down from standard guitar) a fair amount, but mostly for single note/double stops, not full chords. I know there are a few fairly affordable baritone acoustic guitars out there.

I don't have a low-range voice, but another sonic variation would be a low tuned 12-string (ala folks from Leadbelly to Leo Kottke). Some have extended scale lengths, others just up their string gauges and tune down. Jumbo body sizes often seem to match this style well. I often tune my Guild JF30-12 D to D, but I'll drop lower than that--particularly back when I was exploring pieces where I didn't sing and could explore that register with impunity.

Have a dislike for the octave string sound of a regular 12-string? I keep an old laminated 12-string tuned D to D in "Steve Tibbetts tuning" which pairs more courses with unison string pairs instead of octave strings.

Example of how it sounds: Prolog to the Canterbury Tales

Originally Posted by Snorse (Post 7023733)

Thank you for such a thoughtful and helpful post. I think you're right about the baritone guitar, although my sole experience of working with one was briefly owning a budget Alvarez that never ever intonated properly regardless of tuning pitch or string gauge.

The twelve string actually sounds like the answer now you've said it... tuned down and maybe minus the octave G (which was always the thing I disliked about 12's) if I can figure it out. It's less of a learning curve before I can get out and use it, too.

I really do like the sound of that recording, and nice to hear that poem in a new way too.

Much appreciated.

Originally Posted by FrankHudson (Post 7023741)

Tibbetts sometimes varies which octaves he replaces with unisons. On that piece above, it's the "D" and "G" strings (and of course* the "B" and high "E" that are unisons.)

Picture of the cheap 12-string strung like that:

Parlando Project post presenting the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales


*pun intended.

Originally Posted by Snorse (Post 7022988)

Is there another reasonably full-range stringed (not accordions or pipes) instrument that's as portable as a guitar? I count resonators as guitars, btw.

The only thing I can come up with is the Irish bouzouki, but I am sure there are others out there.

I'd like to be able to break up a set with some different sounds, or just be out there doing something different.

Is anyone from the forum playing something unusual out there?

Originally Posted by Snorse (Post 7023674)

...All of my paid gigs are solo, and I do about 50/50 originals and covers that range from trad to modern country to folk (Richard Thompson and John Martyn type stuff) and chart songs...

Originally Posted by Snorse (Post 7023678)

Just as a visual for anyone suggesting mandolin or similar, this is the hand size I'm dealing with. I have a 9" wrist circumference and can pinch grip smooth marble slabs of 50lbs or more together and carry them where my workmates couldn't budge them singly off the floor and would need the suction tool...

https://i.postimg.cc/Cxzx1VdN/Me-guitar.jpg

Originally Posted by Snorse (Post 7023758)

That's a great idea, and I suppose the benefit of using a cheaper 12'r (that looks like an Ekko in the pic, those are actually really tough instruments) is that the extra tension isn't such a worry. Through the PA via magnetics I can probably get a decent sound to get started.

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa (Post 7023947)

I suspect you don't get too many people screaming, "Play 'Freebird' " at your gigs... :cool:

Seriously, I'd suggest a baritone 12-string tuned A - A, with the second course strung with a wound fundamental (for tuning stability and elimination of occasionally dissonant overtones) and a plain octave - this should give you the depth you're after, while the octave second string (which tunes to first-string E in standard guitar tuning) adds sparkle and keeps things from getting muddy; as a rule they're few and far between though, and when you're lucky enough to find one they tend to be expensive, so it'd have to be something that'll see regular if not exclusive use...

Originally Posted by FrankHudson (Post 7023976)

The down-tuning helps a bit with the tension, and the main reason for experimenting with this guitar is that it has a zero-fret, so I can do the unison stringing thing easily.