- Why nine strings?
Although the tuning of the usual six strings of a guitar is mostly standardized, the tuning of additional strings is not, and
individual players may make their choices. Also, six strings is a logical limit for an orderly array of strings tuned in
fourths (with one major third), with all of the strings being
of a given string length as is necessary with straight frets. Most designs for extended range guitars and lutes, then, have six strings, sometimes
seven, which are all of the same length, and share the same system of parallel frets,
and then any additional strings are usually in the bass and - this is important - they usually break the pattern
of tuning-by-fourths in any or all of three ways: (1) the additional strings are often tuned in a diatonic pattern instead of in fourths;
(2) they are often unfretted, so that they play only one note, and (3) they are often longer than the fretted strings.
When the low basses are tuned diatonically in this way, many more strings can fit into a given range of pitches,
and so we have the thirteen course lute, the alto guitar, and
the various harp guitars, which all have low basses which are tuned in some different pattern than the upper strings and either are unfretted, or
require (in the case of the alto guitar) a very different fingering system.
My desire is that each additional string be fretted and as fully functional as the higher strings, and
should continue the regular pattern of tuning-by-fourths, so that fingering patterns are consistent
throughout the fingerboard (except for the wrinkle in the patterns caused by the major third between the G3 and B3 strings).
The fanned fret design serves the explicit purpose of allowing this pattern repetition, and only three additional
strings are possible - according to the judgement I have made of the situation. As noted here,
there has been a 10 string fanned fret classical guitar built which adds four more strings (to the usual six) in a regular pattern, but in
my opinion that design does not have optimal lengths for the extreme strings. The fanning of the fingerboard only allows a certain amount
of expansion of the system, and in order to add any more strings, they have to be fitted within the physical limits of
practical string lengths and pitches. Beyond nine strings, the pitches would have to be closer together, causing redundancy of pitches such
as is the case with the fretted low strings of the alto guitar with its eleven or thirteen strings. Although different guitarists may make
different choices, my choice is for the lowest number of strings offering the greatest range without redundancy.
For those who don't know, the usual straight-fret 10 string classical guitar usually has the 5 lowest strings tuned in a diatonic pattern.
These strings being considerably thicker than optimal, in order to get those low pitches on a 65-centimeter string length, they do not
fret in tune. They sound wonderful open, but they are mostly used unfretted, and the fretting pattern is necessarily redundant and irregular
because of the diatonic tuning pattern. Having many strings increases the problem of management of sympathetic vibrations. My two lowest
strings at F#1 and B1 add a minor seventh to the bass range, with only two strings, as opposed to the gain of only a fifth by adding
four strings, in the usual 10-string design.
- What will the extended range give you that the 7 or 8 string does not?
The low F# and low B1 strings will give me two additional registers in the bass beyond the range of the regular six-string,
and one additional register below the low B1 shared by the Brahms guitar 8-string design and my Castillo seven-string of 2012.
The high A4 string similarly adds a register in the treble, the same as the Brahms guitar type.
In a regular tuning each additional string adds a register.
It will be possible to reach three and a half octaves in any single position, which means that bass and treble can be played much further
apart. For instance, on this instrument it is possible to play some chords in which the bass and treble are separated by as much as a 26th,
spanning only five frets, and chords spanning a 22nd are routine. By contrast, the largest consistently transposable interval between bass
and soprano on a six-string guitar is only a 17th.
I also want a single extended range instrument (and not a keyboard) on which I can integrate several different thinking processes
that I have carried on, which include studying scores of Baroque keyboard music,
studying the music of various Renaissance lute composers in various tablatures, my own studies of counterpoint, figured bass, and jazz
harmony, and the arrangements for two extended range guitars which we regularly perform on stage.
- What are the possible risks and challenges in this design from a player's perspective?
There is the possibility that the guitar will be simply too big for my hands. Based on the 2013 prototype, I don't think that this
will be the case. On the other side of the question, I have had to develop considerably more strength in my left
hand to play the prototype, and will
perhaps need to develop even more to play the 2016 build. But as a matter of fact, there are more mental
challenges than physical challenges in playing an Extended Range Guitar (ERG). Each additional
string on the fingerboard requires building a new array of internal data in what I call the "cerebral map of the fingerboard."
This is the part of the challenge that is the most fun. The physical challenges are just something to be handled.
Later comments: In the interest of full disclosure, it is true that the several years since I began to play seven-string and then
nine-string guitars, I have had to stretch out my left hand and increase its strength. This has not been an easy process and has required
periods of rest or at least of a reduced practice schedule in order to get over (always temporarily) each succeeding case of tendonitis.
This has manifested as weakness in the barre muscle and a sore left elbow. I have known many players who were sidelined by tendonitis, more
often of the right hand than the left. Surgery is an extremely crude solution which often leaves players more crippled than before the
surgery - so don't!! Rest and careful practice are the only solutions. If you are not up for the challenge, there is always the ukulele.
-
What are the possible risks and challenges in this design from
the builder's perspective?
Well, since it is a very experimental design, there could be any number of unforeseen variables affecting the sound and playability of the
finished instrument. The Prototype of 2013 gave very promising results, though, and I think that we have anticipated workable solutions
to all of the issues which were revealed by it. The variables of string length and arrangement of the fan are the least of these, those are
really just mechanical decisions. The need for
a redesign of the top bracing and re-position of the soundhole are much chancier issues, in which the luthier's art may be tested,
and from that point of view a further series of prototypes could be desirable. But that is an expensive proposition.
From a builder's perspective, the main risk in building such an instrument would be that perhaps nobody would
buy it.
- Has a guitar like this ever been built before?
The fanned fret design dates from the 16th century. The 16th century instrument was a lute-like instrument which was called by the
made-for-the-purpose name "Orpharion".
The width of the fan was minimal. The instrument does not appear to have been terribly popular.
For one thing, it would have to have fixed frets, and the custom of the time was to use tied frets, which were movable so
as to be able to tweak the intonation. Fixed metal frets were not commonly used until the early 19th century.
After the 16th century, there was no more
activity with fanned frets, as far as I know, until the late 20th century, when
electric guitar builder Ralph Novak patented a design
which dominated the electric guitar market for extended range guitars for a few years.
Some time later, the guitarist Paul Galbraith conceived
a fanned-fret 8-string classical model, known as the Brahms Guitar,
which has proven sufficiently popular that there are now factory
production models from Bartolex and Agile.
Extremely wide fanned frets such as my design are almost unknown in the classical guitar world but are becoming more common among steel string
players and are now very common among players of extended range electric guitars. There are a number of factory models by various makers of
fanned fret electric guitar/bass hybrids with 8, 9, 10, or 11 strings.
While extreme-fan classical guitars are very rare, there have been at least two built.
One was my own 2013 prototype, built by Salvador Castillo, and the other that commissioned by
Fred Fernseher, who has
never mentioned the name of the builder. Fred's is superficially very similar to my 2013 prototype, although the design was arrived at
before mine and independently of it, and has a few significantly different design features.
Other than these two extreme-fan types, there have been many electric
guitars and basses built with fanned fret patterns; many 8-string classicals of the Brahms Guitar type, which has less extreme fanned frets;
and many steel-string fanned fret guitars built in various configurations.
- What were the problems or design flaws of the prototype of 2013?
There were four significant flaws:
- The lowest string, intended to be an F#1, was not long enough to achieve this low pitch satisfactorily at 68 centimeters.
(On the new build, the F#1 will be 72 centimeters long.)
- The highest string, tuned to A4, was unnecessarily short at 56 centimeters. (On the new build, the A4 will measure 60 centimeters.)
- The fingerboard was not wide enough for 9 strings at 69mm. Electric guitars can use string spacings this narrow; on a classical
guitar it proved impractical. The 2016 build will have a fingerboard width of 80mm at the nut.
- The vibration of the top is impeded by the angled bridge. This has been corrected in the 2016 design by moving the soundhole up into the
upper bout on the bass side, and moving the internal transverse bar toward the bridge into the space that would have been the soundhole.
All of these flaws have been taken into account in the revised design for the 2016 build.
Later note:
The displacement of the soundhole and the placing of the angled point of the treble end of the bridge in the middle of the
vibration field of the top most emphatically improved the sound of the high A4 string, but it also produced a tendency for the
point of the bridge, where the A4 string is anchored,
to make a belly or dip in the top, and the depth of this dip varies depending on the string tension, and
so caused the process of building a saddle which was properly compensated and adjusted for height to be a trial and error
process over several months, building and trying several different saddles. The top does not sag immediately under tension, but rather
settles down gently over a couple of weeks, and so, several times I thought I had the action right, only to have it settle down
a little further, and it also fluctuated when I experimented with different string tensions. As it stands at this (later) writing in 2019,
I am using the lightest gauge strings that I can stand, in order to save my left hand strength.
- Will you patent this design?
No. Not only is taking out a patent a very expensive endeavor, there is a reasonable argument that it would be unethical to do so.
It would slow the development of the design by discouraging competition.
As the basic idea is not mine, I can claim only the details of my particular design. I sincerely hope that as many other guitarists as are
interested will have similar guitars built, so that we can all learn together from our experiences.
I also hope that anyone who has such a guitar built will send me a report and an assessment of the results.
It would require considerable financial resources to develop a complete series of experimental models, which would be a logical next step,
and so I hope that others may take up the idea and carry it in new directions, possibly unforeseen.
- Will Salvador Castillo build more guitars of this type?
Castillo is the premier builder of Flamenco guitars in all of Mexico, and he has plenty of customers for those instruments, as
they are of a known and sought-after design. Although he has built a number of fanned fret eight strings of the Brahms Guitar type,
they were built only on commission to individual guitarists.
It is very likely that he will build more 8-strings, and even relatively likely that
he may build one or two on spec, because the 8-string Brahms-guitar type is now a proven design.
However, more experimental designs such as my nine-string are likely to be too difficult to sell to be worth the investment
unless some guitarist like myself, who is serious about playing one, puts his or her money on the barrel-head first,
and it would be very highly desirable that such a guitarist knows and understands the specifications that he or she wants.
- How long did it take for Salvador Castillo, the luthier,
to finish building the instrument?
6 to 9 weeks is his usual estimate. In my case, he started construction about January 15th, 2016,
and finished it about March 15th.
- When will instruments of this type be commercially available?
Currently, fanned fret guitars somewhat like this are available in somewhat less radical designs from the
Agile and
Bartolex companies.
It is also true that anyone could contact
Salvador Castillo
and ask for a guitar to these specs and have it in two months or a little longer.
- Why did you choose the particular woods that you chose?
European Spruce (Picea Abies) is the best top wood now available, although there are other spruce species
that might work as well. However, the ruling criterion here is that this spruce is the one that Salvador Castillo, our luthier,
likes to work with. He says he gets his best results from it; we say OK. What part of Europe this particular spruce top comes from
is an unanswered question; probably from the Balkans or the Caucasus.
Cocobolo Rosewood (Dalbergia Retusa) was Salvador Castillo's recommendation for the back and sides,
supposedly because it is denser than
Granadillo (Platymiscium Yucatanum), which was my original first choice for the back and sides.
Our Castillo seven-strings of 2012 were built of Granadillo and we were very happy with them, and Frances is still playing
hers although mine was sold to pay for the new nine string. Another possible explanation,
perhaps more likely, for this choice is that
Castillo just had an intuitive hunch that he wanted to use that particular set of coco-bolo for this particular
instrument. I figure, if the luthier says he wants to use this piece of wood rather than that one, it's better to agree than argue,
if you want good results.
Cocobolo grows in Costa Rica, in Mexico,
and in other parts of Central America.
It is often said nowadays that Cocobolo is one of the best replacements for
Brazilian Rosewood (Dalbergia Nigra) which was used by all Spanish builders until the supply started to run out in the 1960s,
and which is now completely illegal and unavailable unless you find someone who has a legacy supply, and even so you
won't be able to travel with a guitar built with it.
Coco Bolo is, along with ALL of the other Rosewoods (i.e. Dalbergia species) now restricted by the CITES treaty, and the main
way in which this affects musicians is to pose the threat of confiscation if one travels with it internationally without
having some carefully prepared and notarized paperwork certifying that the wood was harvested legally.
The reason for this is that even though not all of the Dalbergias are as endangered and rare as Brazilian Rosewood, the customs
agents can't tell one Rosewood from another, so they just blacklisted them all. Now, Granadillo looks pretty much like a
Rosewood even though it is legal, and so if you are going to travel, you have to have some paperwork saying what it is, and
that it is not a Dalbergia, etc. This all presents certain problems we needn't get into any further here.
As many Paracho luthiers have inherited supplies of aged wood from their older relatives,
harvested as long ago as the 1930s, some of it may be
of undocumented origin. The luthier's supply companies in the US have full info posted on this issue.
Inquiry into, and discussion of, this issue with your luthier are essential now, since the CITES treaty was put into effect.
The sad fact remains that all of the fine tropical hardwoods used for backs and sides of guitars are rainforest woods which are fast
disappearing. They may all be gone in another fifty years, and graphite guitars will rule. But fine guitars are a very small part of the total
volume of use of these fine woods (cocobolo is used for many trivial non-musical purposes),
and while we may be sad to see them go, this is a fact of our times, and we should also be happy that
we have fine guitars to play, and not feel too terribly guilty about it. The disappearance of the rain forests is tragic, and perhaps the
ethical path is for us humans to emulate the lemmings and all jump in the sea; but then I wouldn't be able to finish my book on counterpoint.
-
Do you intend to perform on this guitar with Frances at your regular gigs??
Yes, I am already playing it onstage in the spring of 2016, doing our regular duet repertory.
Update March 2019: I haven't played any other guitar for more than five minutes since I got it.
- How do you see this guitar advancing the field of the classical guitar?
The classical guitar has long suffered from its limited range. The Brahms Guitar and the Alto Guitar are already very popular among
classical guitarists who have determined that they need to transcend the limitations of the classical design. This is part of a
general wave of activity, even though this design is newer and only partly proven.
A better question might be, why is this design better than the Brahms Guitar design or the Alto Guitar design?
The Brahms Guitar, the Alto Guitar, and the 2016 Nine-String Fanned Fret Harp Guitar share one important feature: all have an additional
treble register which the standard six-string guitar lacks, in the form of a high A4 string (sometimes tuned G4 by some players, with all
the rest of the strings a whole step lower as well.)
The A4 string must be somewhat shorter than the standard six-string length of 65 centimeters (25-5/8"). The longest proven string length for
an A4 is 63 centimeters (24-11/16"), but this requires a very thin and breakage-prone string.
The Brahms Guitar usually uses 61.5 centimeters (24-3/16"), the 2016 Nine-String Fanned Fret Harp Guitar uses 60 centimeters (23-5/8"),
the Alto Guitar runs around 57 or 58 centimeters (22-1/2" to 22-3/4"), and the Mexican Requinto varies from around 54c to 56c (21-1/4" to 22").
The high A4 string is a wonderful thing and the players who use it say that it seems to replace a missing register on the guitar, to complete
the tonal array in a way which is absent on the six string guitar. In fact this is true; historically the 16th century Spanish Vihuela lost
its high A4 string at the end of the sixteenth century due (perhaps) to the pressure of rising pitch standards
(an A4 string made of gut is very fragile and short-lived), and the music composed for that instrument is just not the
same on any other. Restoring the A4 register to the modern guitar
gives it musical advantages which become apparent very quickly to any thinking musician who picks it up. The down side of this may be,
for some players, that the A4 string lacks body and sounds somewhat shrill, in the same way that the E4 string of many classical
guitars does in comparison with the other registers, but to a greater degree. In other words, some players may not like its sound.
Given that an instrument with an A4 must have a shorter string length, various schemes have been invented for allowing the same instrument
to have longer bass strings. The Swedish Alto Guitar uses an update of the Baroque lute model: although it puts frets on all of the
added low bass strings (which are, however, longer than those on the main fingerboard),
a number of these frets (those offering the most useful low chromatic pitches) are unusable because the player cannot reach them in
a normal playing position, and so the low basses will be used mostly only as open strings just as on the Baroque lute and the Harp Guitar.
The Brahms Guitar, with its fanned frets, is a better
solution, but the current design is quite conservative, having the low B1 at only 65c long,
which is not long enough to be optimal for that pitch.
The makers of Brahms guitars would
do far better to extend the fan so as to make the low B1 longer, perhaps 68c or 70c, for a better-performing string. Even so, the B1 is not
all that low, after all. The low F#1 of the 2016 Nine-String Fanned Fret Harp Guitar gives another bass register, one which would be very
unsatisfactory at 65c. In fact, on my 2013 Prototype Nine-String, I tried the F#1 at 68c, and this was a failure. The open string sounded fine
- and this it has in common with all of the Baroque-lute patterned open bass strings designs at whatever length - but the fact is that such a
string with frets does not perform well, because it clicks against the frets and plays out of tune. A low F# must be longer, and on the new
2016 build, 72c has proven to perform much better, but still offers the tantalizing possibility that 75c would be better yet.
The 2016 Nine-String Fanned Fret Harp Guitar, then, offers the classical guitarist a fully integrated instrument with nine strings that have
a uniform tuning pattern and a five octave range, with three and a half octaves available in any one position (equal to the entire range of
the six string guitar using all positions). The cost, the tradeoff, is that the guitarist needs big hands - and a big brain in order to
expand the cerebral-musical map of the fingerboard by 50%. (Get an extended range guitar and grow your brain!)
- Why didn't you make the low F#1 even longer?
One informed questioner asked, "Why didn't you stretch it out to 74 centimeters instead of 72?" Well - good question. I thought about it,
and the string lengths could have been, say, 62 c to 74, with the same fan. But 72 centimeters is already really radical for a classical guitar,
and I have been somewhat restrained by fear of creating a monster... (a fear, I might mention, which results from my long residence
- 40 years plus or minus - in the "classical guitar ghetto" with Segovia's ghost scolding the dissidents) and I didn't want to absolutely maximize the working length of the high
A4, nor to increase the fan. A final factor is that 60:72 reduces to 5:6, a neat Pythagorean ratio, and this is the only measurement in even
centimeters close to my desired specs that gives such a clean ratio. It may well be that this is irrelevant, but number theory and tuning theory
have been very important factors in the long process leading up to this guitar, and I chose to use the Pythagorean ratio as the determining
factor in an otherwise difficult choice depending on informed guesswork. Unquestionably the 74 c F#1 would sound very nice, but my fear was of
ending up with a very difficult instrument to play, which still may be the case anyway.
After receiving the finished instrument in late March, 2016, I had further thoughts:
The instrument with low F#1 at 72c is not hard to play, and so, a low string length of 75 centimeters might not be unreasonable
after all, and would give superior results for the tone of a low F#1 string.
The ratio 60:75 reduces to 4:5, an even neater Pythagorean ratio than 5:6. If there should ever be another build, I would consider this, after
making, of course, a number of drawings of possible variations.
-
How is this instrument different from a 12-string guitar?
"I am sure that there is a looooong answer, but how does it (the Nine-String Fanned Fret Harp Guitar) differ from a
12-string guitar? Briefly so I can understand??"
"Briefly" is unrealistic, sorry.
Six strings is a logical limit for an instrument with all the strings of the same length with the string technology that we have.
The six strings can all be played with four left-hand fingers using standard known chord forms, and all the six strings can be strummed at once.
A strummed guitar with four or five strings is easier and more convenient, but six is the maximum for strummed instruments.
With a seven, eight or nine string, there are too many strings to make full chords on with four fingers, so you cannot strum all of the
strings at once.
A 12 string guitar is an intentionally redundant instrument which has a pair of strings for each single string of the standard six-string
guitar, and these pairs of strings are stopped at the same time with one finger of the left hand; beyond the (well-known) increased finger strength
required to physically press the extra strings against the fingerboard, there is no increase in gray matter necessary, because the
fingering system is the same as with the six string, and there is nothing new to learn.
All that is necessary is pure brawn, making it the preferred instrument of those with that necessary attribute.
That is, it takes no additional cerebral processing power to play the 12-string, merely double the
strength in the left hand. So, if you have brawn and not brain, the 12-string is the instrument for you.
The bass strings of the 12-string are doubled at the octave instead of at the unison, which gives the 12-string its typical
"lovely shimmery sound" - which is because it is out of tune most of the time.
The double-string system was normal on
all European guitars and lutes during the 15th through 18th centuries.
With gut strings, doubled strings save the day when one breaks, and allow more volume from lower tension strings.
Double strings fell out of fashion
with the birth of the modern six-string guitar (1750 - 1800 being the formative period).
The 12 string is a throwback to an older historical norm, but with steel strings, the string tension is enormous.
Whereas...
my Nine-String Fanned Fret Harp Guitar has 9 single strings which are all tuned independently of each other in nine orderly registers
(with one irregular register change just as on the six-string between G3 and B3). The logical limit of 6 strings at any given length
(which we already passed when we had the 7-strings built) is evaded by making the strings of different lengths.
Thus the highest string is only 60 centimeters long, allowing ONE shorter, thinner string with a higher open-string pitch than the
highest open-string pitch of a standard six-string guitar, and the lowest string has a length of 72 centimeters,
which allows (at this length) TWO longer, fatter, lower-pitched strings of which the lowest is almost as low as the lowest
note of a double bass.
(You will appreciate that symmetry would demand a low string length of 75 centimeters, which would indeed give interesting results,
but would be an even more radical move from the point of view from inside the classical guitar ghetto established by Segovia and from
which viewpoint I began; my fear was that the 75c length would be unplayable, a fear which I now think may be unreasonable. In fact I
chose the lengths 60:72 because they reduce to the neat Pythagorian ratio 5:6. The ratio 60:75 would reduce to 4:5 and this would
also be nice though whether this particular mode of measurement is relevant to actual results is also debatable; however 60:75 might
be on the table for another future instrument.)
As a result of the need for different string lengths on the same instrument, the frets are necessarily laid out using two different
scale calculations, a longest and a shortest. The intermediate strings are correct by mathematical necessity since all possible
string lengths between the shortest and the longest will be scaled correctly as well - once having established the longest and
shortest, there could be an infinite number of intermediate strings, as a matter of pure theory.
Now we return to the 12-string.
The 12 strings of a 12-string guitar are tuned as follows, in pairs from lowest to highest: the range of open strings is from E2
(82.41 Hz) to G4 (392.00 Hz):
E2 - E3
A2 - A3
D3 - D4
G3 - G4 (highest actual open string at 392 hz)
B3 - B3
E4 - E4 (329.6 hz)
whereas the nine-string tuning is like this, with a range in Hz of 46.25 to 440:
F#1 (46.25 hz)
B1
E2
A2
D3
G3
B3
E4 (329.6 hz)
A4 (440 hz)
-
How is this new instrument different from the "traditional" Harp Guitar of the 19th century Italian pattern?
There have been many rather different instrument forms called "harp guitar" or something similar, because the concept is
basically more a matter of visual effect than musical effect, incorporating 19th century neo-classical design elements,
and most of these forms share one specific type of musical function, which is a revival of the functional
form of the Baroque lute: a basic six-course instrument has added monotoned bass strings, as many as the performer desires, which
have the advantage of providing long-ringing, easy-to-play low bass notes, and also two distinct disadvantages:
there are too many of these low strings if there are even enough to be useful, (often there are only two or three) and they
ring freely for far longer than necessary and freely do so at times when this is not musically desirable.
Notwithstanding a wide variety of forms, one major collector of harp guitars (in various forms) took it upon himself to propagate
an "official" definition of "harp guitar" and persuaded the prestigious Grove's Dictionary of Music to "officially" define "harp guitar"
as what this guy said it was, which is the instrument seen at upper right in this picture
of the Nashville Harp Guitar Orchestra. (On clicking this
link, you will see, upper right, the Harp Guitar Orchestra all playing the "official" Harp Guitar type.
The "Lyre Guitar", larger picture at left, is one of the alternative forms mentioned.
It is superficially different in appearance, but functionally there is no difference at all, as it has exactly the same arrangement
of strings.) The official Grove's Dictionary definition of a harp guitar is, therefore, the creation of one
somewhat biased collector of these peculiar and beautiful instruments, and may be disregarded.
The 2016 Nine-String Fanned Fret Harp Guitar has as its main "harp-like" attribute the graduated lengths of the strings, which vary in
a regular pattern from short-and-high-pitched to long-and-low-pitched. Note that the (ahem) "official" harp guitar lacks this structural
attribute and has no musical resemblance to a harp: the resemblance to a harp of that type of instrument is purely cosmetic,
and is due to the 19th century classical revival fad. It is sort of like putting chariot wheels on your VW bug to make it look cool.
You could dress up in a toga while you drive it, and look super cool, just like the harp guitar players dressed in their togas
at the Nashville Harp Guitar Festival. A hospital gown with the slit up the back will do if your toga is in the wash. No doubt
Nero and Caligula would have dug your arrangement of Wildwood Flower using those low C and G strings!
The true Harp has this structural pattern of graduated string lengths, in common with a number of
other instruments such as the pipe
organ, the piano, the marimba, the xylophone and the thumb piano, but the
19th-century Italian Harp Guitar design typically and egregiously does not.
Then, while the extra low bass strings of the "official" Harp Guitar design are monotoned
and unfretted, and therefore of very limited musical use (on a par with the didgeridoo)
those of the 2016 Nine-String Fanned Fret Harp Guitar are completely integrated on the fingerboard and therefore offer a complete range of
chromatic notes to the musician who knows what to do with them, notes which the harp guitar typically lacks completely and which
are unknown to the players of them.
A dynamically structural musical bass line demands fully functional bass strings, whereas
an open bass which merely provides a primary harmonic color
may be more easily played, by the amateur, leaving the open string to ring, as they often do, until hell freezes
over or the player remembers to damp it.
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