Tenor Guitar anybody? Do share!

[johnnylaw]

Curious…
Out of the blue, I got offered a pretty sweet vintage tenor guitar. It’s in very good condition for (what I believe to be) a seventy year old Gibson. The gent wants a straight up trade, not the least bit lopsided.
I play mostly a Tele in an Americana& alt country band. This tenor would be somewhat of a novelty, but a lovely, great sounding guitar.
Anybody here twangin’ tenor?
Thoughts, ideas, experiences welcome.

 

[Robert H.]

Never played one but saw Jazz great Tiny Grimes in the 70’s play his tenor archtop. Wonderful sound.

 

[howardlo]

I bought a nice Kala acoustic tenor 4 or 5 years ago. Really fun to play and the normal tuning,CDGA, (which I always use) makes for some different chord inversions than a capoed up guitar.

Back in the early 80’s I had found a really cheap one at a yard sale. Had a lot of fun with it but the wife of the bass player in my bluegrass band also liked it and wanted to learn to play it. I ended up giving it to her and had missed having one since then. Sweet sounding instruments.

They always make me think of the Kingston Trio and I was a big fan of them back then.

 

[Mandocaster68]

I'm primarily a mandolin guy, so tenors are kind of 'in the family.' My tele is a tenor.

It seems like Gibson tenors get good marks from the folks I've talked to. In an Americana setting, a CGDA tenor gives a really nice voice, especially in an ensemble with a standard 6 string.

Eleanor Whitmore with "The Mastersons" has a great little Collings tenor used to good effect. Here's a nice example of the sound. Click ahead to 14:30.

 

[Tricone]

and and never tried one, but look like fun and great tone.

 

[billy logan]

Tenor guitar played by one of the Mills Brothers, "... God charges no rent ..."

(thanks to @televillian for starting a Mills Bros. thread in May)

google says the usual tunings are CGDA or GDAE or (thinnest four strings of guitar>)DGBE
If I got a tenor guitar I'd be lazy and tune it guitar-ish-ly, probably DGBE.

Hallucinatory 1932 animation - the Mills Brothers return to the screen at 3:30. The visual inspiration for Stairway to Heaven at exactly 7:01

 

[Wildeman]

Got a couple banjos and fixed up a mint '30s Kalamazoo for my buddy, it was his grandpa's old tenor. The banjos are fun, one's tuned Chicago and one regular tenor. I'm still trying to get comfortable with 5th tunings, I've been playing standard guitar and open tunings for years so the Chicago tuned one gets the most love.

 

[jays0n]

I made a nut with four slots and sort of just DIYed a guitar to be a tenor, to see how it was. I put heavy strings (from a 11 or 12 set, and flat wound ).

It is tuned like the low strings on a guitar (EADG). I am not sure I like it. It’s fun in a way but hard to play and hard to switch back to a regular guitar after playing for a while. I think if I was in certain bands from my past, I would like this and it would have added something unique, but for home … I think I’ll probably put it back to 6.

 

[johnnylaw]

She looks like this one here:

 

[johnnylaw]

Thanks everybody for your contributions.
I’m leaning toward the trade.
It’s going to take a bit of love and experimentation, but it may be well up there on the cool scale when dialed in.

 

[Mojohand40]

I love tenor guitar. I was at Fanny's in Nashville in October and they had three in stock! Rare to see one. There was an old 1947 Martin tenor there that I am still regretting not taking home with me...just a bit rich for my blood. Or at least more than I could spend right now.
Mostly I get by with a baritone Ukulele as they are tuned the same as I would a tenor guitar. Just a little shorter scale.
Basically its just the bottom 4 strings of a guitar, DGBE . All though; some people tune them CDGA and some do GDAE. Personally I prefer DGBE and usually finger pick blues type tunes.
There is something about JUST having four strings and that short scale that makes chord melody or just fancy chord comping (like Gypsy Jazz) so much easier for me to wrap my head around. Less is more.

 

[bebopbrain]

This is going to be outré.

Like @jays0n, I converted a 6 string to 4. Love it. Thinking about getting a Ibanez Gio Mikro (GSRM20) 4 string bass with a 28.6" scale and playing it (with capo) at various scale lengths, strung with light guitar strings.

I don't use guitar tuning. Or uke tuning. Or mando tuning.
I use cheat code tuning for jazz:
All open: D7 chord (without the root, with the 6th and 9th).
0 B 6th
0 F# 3rd
0 E 9th
0 C 7th

Am (without the root, with 7th and 9th) is:
0 B 9th
1 G 7th
0 E 5th
0 C 3rd

Note the easy transition between these two chords.
The same shape is C major 7th.

With three easy barre chords (two easy shapes) away you go. The voicings are ideal, too.

Also, having two strings 1 step apart is nice for dissonant Johnny Thunders unison bends.

 

[stinkey]

I have a nylon guitar with out the e strings, tuned as a mandolin, G D A E. Great for comping on recordings, a little back in the mix.