On my Soundclick.com page I now have over 90 songs and instrumentals which can all be listened to or downloaded at near hi-fi quality (the latest ones are encoded at 192kbps). There are lyrics for all the songs, whether my own or traditional. Most of the time I play very standard guitars, and the recordings feature a great variety of instruments from Lowden, Washburn, Martin, Troubadour (my own brand), Avandel, Lamaq and others. But I have a keen interest in guitar family instruments, historic and modern, and play all sorts of things from waldzither and laud to 18th c guittar. At the moment my regular companions include a c1900 British zither banjo, a six-course Peter Cox short scale cittern made in Canada, a large Moroccan oud, a waldzither, mountain dulcimer, Canarian timple, Greek baglamas, celtic bouzouki, mandolas and mandolins, acoustic bass, Spanish laud... but only one pair of hands!
Read about - and study detailed photographs of -
a historic cittern style guittar (English Guitar, or Scottish guittar) c.1770 which was found in an Ontario secondhand shop and auctioned on eBay. I bought this, and it proved to be in excellent condition for a probable 200-230 years old. I have made a new ebony bridge to replace the original, which had been altered and was too low, and acquired a suitable watch key for the tuning mechanism. Some further work remains to be done, but it's playable now and sounds just as it should. You can hear a
2
minute recording on Soundclick.com, and also a rendering of
Bremner's 1758
version of the tune '
Tweedsyde ' from his Guitar Tutor, intended for this instrument.
Travel Guitar by mail order
I have had made, in Romania, a batch of rather nice affordable 'travel guitars' which are a cross between a cittern and a guitar, with a scale length of 24 inches (one fret shorter than a regular guitar). They resemble the antique 18th century guittar in some ways, but they are LOUD little things, twangy and resonant especially if you don't hug the body but keep a bit of air all round it. They cost £98.45 including insured postage in the UK, with a padded fabric gig bag and the factory fitted brass/steel strings (they can also be strung with nylon strings, and sound very good using High Tension strings - add £10 for this). The costs overseas is $200 including standard air parcel post to the USA.
My Troubadour Blondel Cittern Guitars guitars are all blonde, with
solid European spruce tops, solid maple (sycamore) sides, four-piece
laminated maple neck, and laminated limewood back. They are checked
over and adjusted before sending out, and if required, can be given low
action (not possible to use nylon strings if this is done). I have a
recording of a new song
called 'Ghost in the Machine' - on Soundclick.com
and also on originalmp3s.com
- which demonstrates the acoustic sound of this wee 'backpacking'
guitar and I can assure you, it's so much better than other travel
guitars I am amazed. You can also download
it directly from this site.
I now have a website - troubadour.uk.com - and we shall be searching out more travel instruments (and celtic session stringed things) to sell. One of the first additions is the Maui Xaphoon pocket saxophone, available now in the UK for £49.95 - you could have your own tomorrow... and also we've got tenor mandolins (CFCG celtic tuning) and Irish bouzoukis. We have new electric-equipped zouks and mandolas and a new version of the Blondel with rosewood fingerboard and three-part laminated neck, so visit Troubadour UK to find out. We also have the Jumplead, a useful tuner sensor and emergency pickup which can amp up a mandolin or fiddle in seconds and only costs £11.75 + p&p.
The other instruments in the Cittern Guitar photo are not included! One
is an Italian Lombard mando-lute, the other a Hopf autoharp. As you can
see, the travel guitar makes a great renaissance cittern 'fake' and
does indeed have that cittern-like sound. Innovative or historic
tunings are a natural for this little instrument.
Specifications are: weight with bag in shipping case, 1.53kilos. Scale 24 inches, nut 45mm, strings at bridge 55mm. Body approx 8.5 inches wide, 14.5 inches long, 2.5 inches deep. Tuners, strip type open mechanism, steel posts with waist, steel buttons (large), no collets. Nut and saddle, plastic (can be replaced at additional cost with bone). Finish high gloss lacquer, painted binding, stained flat hardwood fingerboard. Plastic endpin strap button. Pearlite fretboard markers and white dot side markers. General quality: finish is good, woods have good bookmatching for the top, remainder can vary but generally attractive. No stains are used at all. The printed rosette shown in the photo is NOT present in current models - the tops are plain spruce, no decoration.
Here's a small fun instrument - a Greek baglamas
, tuned d'a'd' and about the size of a spoon! I've also got a
short mp3 recording from this. Sounds like a soprano machine gun.
If you really want to annoy your family, swap your banjo for one of
these.
The Critic - a nice little photo
by Shirley shows Bert Jansch, one of my all-time heroes, with a small
audience at Traquair Fair, August 2000. What you can't see is that BOTH
fingers are in the ears of this tiny folkie!
*Apr2000 RMMGA Belper Meet - six months after the
last rec.music.makers.guitar.acoustic houseparty, another one was held.
Here's my report with photographs
including a big JPEG of the entire group
.
*Mar2000 Lowden Millennium Twins - news from
Lowden about a new guitar edition using redwood cedar tops, claro
walnut bodies, and sold as perfectly matched pairs made from the same
billet of wood, etc.
*Feb2000 Pierre Bensusan Concert and Workshop - on
January 29th 2000, Pierre Bensusan gave a Masterclass workshop in
Melrose, Scotland, followed by a concert, both at the Wynd Theatre.
Here is a report, in brief, of a wonderful day which proved to be a
sell-out all round and was greatly enjoyed by audience and guitar
students alike. This report also has a hi-res photograph of Pierre's
1978 Lowden guitar. For details of Pierre, see his web pages
. My thanks to all my Internet friends who helped with the concert,
offering advice and material for the publicity leaflets, and of course
to
those who travelled long distances to come to it!
*Updated Feb2000
MacKillop's Complaynte - sorry about
that... Rob MacKillop is an Edinburgh-based guitar historian and
through
a mutual acquaintance made contact. He taught me about Scottish
wire-strung 'guittar' playing in the 18th century, 500 years and 500 or
more of lute and guitar tunes from Scotland from 13th
c onwards, etc. From him I learned that the
cittern-like six string guittar was
tuned CEGCEG. So I thought I'd try a composition on a small guitar
tuned
GBDGBD (which was a tuning used by the larger Gibson of Dubin guitars
made in the 1700s) with John Pearse silks. Hence the title, as Rob will
complain that this is nothing whatsoever like 'guittar' music!
He's sent me a CD of his performance of Scottish tunes on antique
instruments, and of course they are very different - and fascinating.
Look out for his music book 'Scottish Traditional Music for the Guitar'
which uses DADGAD and DGDGBD tunings for modern players, but
transcribes the original arrangements from around 1760. I eventually
acquired an antique guittar myself - from around 1770.
Before that I found a tiny Yamaha instrument
called the Guitalele and restrung this in silk and steel to CEGCEG
tuning - only £49.50 in most UK shops! It's surprisingly good for the
money and intended as a nylon string instrument, but with a proper set
of machine heads, proper fingerboard and laminated body. The photo
shows
it next to my Lowden O-10 of the time.
I have also made a recording of a 1758 Bremner guittar duet, rearranged
for solo guitar by Jack Campin, which is Soundclick - the Edinburgh
Trained Bands March. This uses a Tacoma Papoose alto guitar. *Nov99 Fret Diagram Test - this is an experiment to
see whether a graphic way of describing guitar licks, without using
tabulature, can be easily understood. Please let me know your opinion
on this template for publishing 'actions' involved in playing. It is
aimed at producing material which can help people learn guitar rapidly
and visually.
*Nov99 Midnight in Paris - for anyone interested in
songwriting, the story of a song completed in the week of Princess
Diana's
funeral but started over a year before. The song is
available on Soundclick.com .
*Nov99 Laidlaw's Last Lament - a song written
about a story of a Scottish battalion in the trenches of the First
World War, with complete MP3 file
available on Soundclick.com .
*Nov99 Images of Rotosound Clawpick and appeal for anyone who can find any of these superb
1970s products - or any company that can faithfully make the same thing
today. This page is of very serious interest to anyone using bare
finger or nail picking on steel strings, and unhappy with the current
choice of fingerpicks.
*Oct99 : RMMGA UK Houseparty October 15-18th - a
report on this outstandingly well organised weekend meet of newsgroup
members from rec.music.makers.guitar.acoustic, including personal
appearances by Mr George Lowden himself and the Lowden 25th Anniversary
Model, two other British luthiers, and superb players including Greg
Neaga from Germany and pro fingerstylist Doug Smith.
*Oct99: ChevyChase99 , a 3 minute song recorded
without guile or ambition - that is, direct recording on to Sony
Minidisk with one Sony stereo microphone set up to do guitar and voice
simultaneously, transferred to MP3 file without any manipulation other
than 'smoothing' to remove some auto level mike hiss, and a fade-out at
the end. Recorded on my Lowden O-10 with British made Newtone strings.
The song is
available on Soundclick.com .
*Oct99: recording
of arrangement of Northumbrian fiddle or pipe tune, 'Keep Yor Feet
Still Geordie Hinny', made on my self-built guitar using some cheap
Internet-sourced strings. Find details on the page
with the pic of my kit guitar. I'm now told that this speed is much
too FAST for the song version (fiddlers tell me I am too SLOW for the
dance version!).
A report of a Feast of Festivals
- some words about the last night of the Edinburgh Festival, and
experiences at the Tinto Folk Festival (end of August, beginning of
September,
1999, Scotland).
The original text and photographs for my Acoustic Guitar magazine, April 1998,
article on building a Martin Guitarmakers' Connection guitar kit.
A section on Scottish
traditional songs , including transliterations and conflations,
with notes. Some of this was original written in response to email
requests on the 'Cult of Lowden' email discussion group.
About self
I'm an acoustic guitarist, songwriter, singer and organiser of a weekly
folk club in the small town of Kelso, Scottish Borders (Friday nights
at the Cobbles Inn, Bowmont Street, Kelso, 9.30pm onwards - you can
email
me
david@maxwellplace.demon.co.uk to find out what's on). We are about
an hour's drive from Edinburgh or an hour and a quarter from Newcastle
upon Tyne. The sessions run every week with a break for a couple of
August weeks, a missing night or two over Christmas, then start again
mid-January. We usually manage Hogmanay or something... we also have
monthly guest artists concerts, usually the
2nd Friday in each month.
We have some good players in our area and regularly get to see top
names at local small venue paying just a few pounds (around $10)
admission to see someone like John Renbourn
play the Wynd
Theatre in Melrose. Or Peggy Seeger, or Julie Felix, or Jacqui
McShee...
I enjoy guitars - good guitars - and I have built one guitar, my
steel string kit-Martin 0000 or M size
(Grand Auditorium).
When I bought the worst guitar in the world for £45 brand new
(around $70) I discovered just how badly made these Chinese dreadnought
copies can be! Here's what I did with it .
But listen, too, to
Matty Groves played on this guitar in fake Baritone 'B' tuning...
all the strings moved down one (B string for the top string instead of
E, etc) plus a
heavyweight 0.062 added at the bottom. This is actually one of the best
recorded sounds I've ever got, and it's from the cheap piezo pickup in
this box!
For the Lowden and Cittern Discussion Groups, go to Yahoogroups .
If you are interested in stuff on Lowden guitars themselves, follow this link.
