Krappy’s been making two string guitars for years:
http://www.krappyguitars.com/punkrod.html
They’ll make an instrument with as many or few strings as you desire if you ask.
Nice, but I’d like to see an electric gusle.
Love this! The kid playing in the demo is fun. How about a Chris Ballew model? He’s famous for his 2 string bass in The Presidents. He plays a three string guitar when performing solo as Caspar Babypants.
I love the idea of diminution of tools as a road to enhanced creativity. Play inversion or some-such? I wonder if a really big guitar with dozens of courses would be as “sparky” for ideas?
i love the concept of this but regular guitars are so cheap on the used market these days its hard to justify the price
I would argue that the neck should be wide enough to modify into a 4-string tenor guitar if you wanted to add a string. Clearly the headstock already has enough room to add another tuner, but the neck looks a tad narrow. I don’t think a little more space will hamper kids hands at all, and there is already a market for tenor guitars, so it would be a wise modification-- the guitar would enjoy added sales from tenor guitarists who want to add a 4th string.
Here - put a bow on this and pull it real tight.
Thanks for the link, I had never heard of the gusle (or dvorglre) before!
Lu Edmonds of Public Image Ltd. plays an electric three string “guitar” called a Saz, which is a traditional stringed instrument from the Middle East. He gets a great sound out of it.
I learned about the gusle from Charles Simic’s introduction to The Battle of Kosovo, translated by John Matthias and Vladeta Vučković. Might be of interest to people who like medieval stuff, if you happen to know anyone like that.
The concept holds water with me. I found taking up ukulele a boon to my guitar playing. And found further inspiration playing a home made guitar/mountain dulcimer tuned DAd, diatonic frets and all. The limitations and quirks forces one out of the comfort zones we get accustomed to playing one instrument.
Looks like a fun instrument to have. And then later on if you hit rough times, you could always hock your Loog.
I fail to see how dumbing down a guitar is in anyway cool. I suppose it’s less intimidating to non musicians, that’s about it. It would be much better to get a kid that age a real guitar, because musically she would have no future with this gimmick.
definitely true. i’ve got two acoustics, and on one of them tend to not replace broken strings until i’ve broken 3 or 4. then i’ll just replace 1 or 2 of them. and then tune them funny. sometimes. basically i have no idea how the guitar is tuned or how the strings relate to each other. there’s no way to get stuck in a rut there.
It would be a shame to hock your Loog just for a little green; maybe you’ve got a rich Auntie Histamine who could tissue a loan?
You would be surprised. As a previous comment says (and I can also attest to), simplifying and instrument actually helps already competent musicians change their ingrained habits and forces them into new areas. As for kids, don’t assume that just because they learned on a 3-sstring guitar that they will be stuck there forever-- most 6-string bass players started out on 4-string.
It’s quite obvious, on the other hand, that smartening up a guitar is on the opposite end of the cool spectrum. Three-string guitar? Pfft. Check me out with my 36-string axe!
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