View Single Post
  #12  
Old 01-28-2023, 02:49 PM
Teleplucker's Avatar
Teleplucker Teleplucker is offline
Charter Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 2,439
Default

Well since I am the guy in the video I will weigh in. First thanks for watching/listening. I had been playing guitar for about 40 years when I had my first exposure to HG. I took a class from Stephen Bennett at The Swannanoa gathering called "Fingerpicking the Beatles". I did not know who SB was but I knew I liked the Beatles, so it seemed like a good idea. As it turned out it was a fun class, sometime midweek SB brough his HG and played a tune on it. I had seen pictures of HGs but I had never heard one. Stephen is a virtuoso musician so of course it sounded great when he played it. As he explained a little about it I began to think of the possibilities. I came home from that guitar camp determined to find out more. I soon was very deep in the harp guitar rabbit hole.

In the following 12 years I have gone through several harp guitars that ranged from terrible to good to great. After you play the instrument for awhile and you start getting used to the way it looks you start thinking of it as what it really is. It's just a guitar with an extended sonic range.

For me I eventually found that the extended treble range was not really what spoke to me. The Emerald in that particular video was eventually sold to buy something else. I do recommend HG to anyone looking for something new. If you already play fingerstyle, it's simply a matter of teaching your thumb where the bass notes are. Eventually you build up the muscle memory to hopefully hit the right bass note. The wrong bass note can really sound bad .

Here's an original tune that I think really benefits from the extended range offered by the harp guitar. The guitar neck is tuned in DADGAD and the bass strings are (G D C B A G E) highest bass note to lowest bass note. There is no hard and fast rule for the tunning of the bass strings, that particular tunning is "Bennett tuning" with an extra low note because my HG has 7 bass strings.

I'll be happy to answer any questions from anyone interested in coming over to the world of the "full range" guitar, and I highly suggest you check out videos from Stephen Bennett, Andy Walberg and others.

__________________
My YouTube Page
Reply With Quote