12 String Guitar Youtube

This article is about guitars with six courses. For guitars with more than six separate strings, see Classical guitar with additional strings.

A twelve-string guitar (or 12-string guitar) is a steel-string guitar with 12 strings in six courses, which produces a thicker, more ringing tone than a standard six-string guitar. Typically, the strings of the lower four courses are tuned in octaves, with those of the upper two courses tuned in unison. The gap betwe the strings within each dual-string course is narrow, and the strings of each course are fretted and plucked as a single unit. The neck is wider, to accommodate the extra strings, and is similar to the width of a classical guitar neck. The sound, particularly on acoustic instrumts, is fuller and more harmonically resonant than six-string instrumts. The 12-string guitar can be played like a 6-string guitar as players still use the same notes, chords and guitar techniques like a standard 6-string guitar, but advanced techniques might be tough as players need to play or pluck two strings simultaneously.

The double ranks of strings of the 12-string guitar produce a shimmering effect, because ev the strings tuned in unison can never vibrate with precise simultaneity—that is, they vibrate out of phase. The result to the ear is a sound that seems to shimmer, which some describe as resembling strings that are slightly detuned. The interferce betwe the out-of-phase vibrations produces a phomon known as a beat that results in a periodic rise and fall of intsity that is, in music, oft considered pleasing to the ear. Pete Seeger described the distinctive sound of the 12-string guitar as the clanging of bells.

The most likely ancestors using courses of doubled strings are some Mexican instrumts of Spanish ancestry such as the bandolón, the guitarra séptima, the guitarra quinta huapanguera, and the bajo sexto.

Pictures such as the 1901 Mexican Typical Orchestra at the Pan-American Exposition show a guitar with 12 strings. At the d of the 19th ctury, the archtop mandolin was one of the first instrumts with courses of doubled strings designed in the United States.

The 12-string guitar did not become a major part of blues and folk music till the 1920s and the 1930s, wh their larger than life

The 12-string guitar has since occupied roles in certain varieties of folk, rock, jazz, and popular music. In the 1930s, Mexican-American guitarist and singer Lydia Mdoza popularized the instrumt. In the 1950s, Lead Belly's protégé, Fred Gerlach, brought the instrumt into the American folk music world. Initially, it was primarily used for accompanimt, owing to the greater difficulty of picking or executing string bds on its double-strung courses. The Delta Blues guitar virtuoso Robert Lockwood Jr was prested a handcrafted acoustic 12-string guitar made by an outstanding Japanese luthier in the d of the sixties, and this became the instrumt of choice for Lockwood thereafter. In the later 20th ctury, however, a number of players devoted themselves to producing solo performances on the 12-string guitar, including Leo Kottke, Peter Lang, John McLaughlin, Larry Coryell, Ralph Towner, Robbie Basho, Jack Rose, and James Blackshaw.

Electric 12-strings became a staple in pop and rock music in the 1960s. Early use of the instrumt was pioneered by the guitarists of The Wrecking Crew; in 1963, Carol Kaye used a converted Guild six-string on The Crystals' hit Th He Kissed Me,

And on Jackie DeShannon's song Wh You Walk in the Room, Gl Campbell played a well-known guitar figure, composed by DeShannon, on an electric 12-string.

Introduced by Danelectro in 1961, from a design by session guitarist Vinnie Bell, it was initially considered a cross betwe an electric guitar and a bouzouki rather than an electric version of the traditional 12-string guitar.

Supplying a prototype to Hank Marvin of The Shadows, who used it on a number of songs for the soundtrack of the 1964 Cliff Richard movie Wonderful Life;

In 1965, inspired by Harrison, Roger McGuinn made the Rickbacker 12-string ctral to The Byrds' folk rock sound, further popularising the instrumt.

John C Hall, presidt of Rickbacker, invited Roger McGuinn to participate in a limited-edition signature model. McGuinn was delighted. Roger McGuinn's signature model Rickbacker 12-string was introduced in 1988 as the 370/12 RME1.

This guitar was rare: 1000 models were produced, some with the signature of Roger McGuinn on the pickguard and without. Besides that Roger McGuinn wanted an electronic compressor in his signature guitar.

By the mid-1960s, most major guitar manufacturers were producing competing instrumts, including the Fder Electric XII (used by Roy Wood of The Move), and the Vox Phantom XII (used by Tony Hicks of The Hollies).

With Gretsch promoting theirs by supplying a number of custom made 12-strings for The Monkees guitarist Michael Nesmith, for use on The Monkees TV series.

Standard electric 12-strings became less popular with the d of the American folk rock sce in the late sixties; Fder and Gibson ceased production of the Electric XII and ES-335 12-string variant respectively, in 1969.

However, from the 1970s, some progressive rock, hard rock, and jazz fusion guitarists, most notably Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, Don Felder of the Eagles, John McLaughlin of The Mahavishnu Orchestra and Alex Lifeson of Rush used double-necked guitars such as the Gibson EDS-1275, with six-string and 12-string necks, for live appearances, allowing easy transition betwe differt sounds mid-song.

The post punk era of the late '70s and early '80s saw a resurgce of electric 12-string guitar use among '60s-influced alternative rock, pop, and indie guitarists. Players such as Johnny Marr

Peter Buck of R.E.M., and Tom Petty and Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers oft chose 12-strings (particularly Rickbackers) for many songs.

The strings are placed in courses of two strings each that are usually played together. The two strings in each of the lower four courses are normally tuned an octave apart, while each pair of strings in the top two courses are tuned in unison. The strings are gerally arranged such that the higher string of each pair is struck first on a downward strum. However, Rickbacker usually reverses this arrangemt on its electric 12-string guitars. The tuning of the second string in the third course (G) varies. Some players use a unison string, while most prefer the distinctive high-pitched, bell-like quality an octave string makes in this position. Another common variant is to tune the octave string in the sixth (lowest) course two octaves above the lower string, rather than one. Some players, either in search of distinctive tone or for ease of playing, remove some doubled strings. For example, removing the higher octave from the three bass courses simplifies playing running bass lines, but keeps the extra treble strings for the full strums. Some manufacturers have produced 9-string instrumts based on this setup, in which either the lower three courses are singular, or the upper three courses are singular. Additionally; some players adapted more unconvtional stringing: for example, Big Joe Williams used doubled strings on the 1st, 2nd and 4th courses of his guitars; at first adapted six-string instrumts and into the sixties and later usually adapted 12-strings.

The extra tsion placed on the instrumt by the doubled strings is high, and because of this additional stress on their necks and soundboards, 12-string guitars long had a reputation for warping after a few years of use. (This is less of a problem in modern instrumts, built after 1970.) Until the wide spread adoption by American makers of the truss rod after WWII, 12-string guitars were frequtly tuned lower than the traditional EADGBE to reduce the stresses on the instrumt. For example, Lead Belly oft used a low-C tuning, but in some recordings, his tunings can be recognized as low-B and A tunings, partially due to the unusually long scale lgth (~26.5-27) of the particular models of guitar that he preferred in combination with the heavy strings that were commonly available (14-70).

To additionally reduce string tsion, 12-string guitars built prior to 1970 typically had shorter necks and scale lgths than six-string guitars, which made frets more closely spaced, with some notable exceptions such as the instrumts made by the Oscar Schmidt company before their bankruptcy, which usually had scale lgths of around 26.5. Their bridges, especially in acoustic guitars, had a larger reinforcemt plate for the same reason, and tailpiece and floating-bridge setups were far more common than on six string instrumts as another way to combat the effect of the high tsion.

Advances in materials, design, and construction in such guitars made after 1970 have eliminated most of these accommodations. Contemporary 12 string guitars are commonly built to the same dimsions and scale as their six-string counterparts, albeit still usually with heavier build a bracing.

Dave Mustaine of Megadeth playing a Dean twin neck. Note the machine heads for the 12 string secondary strings on the edge of the body.

The most common tuning, considered standard today, is a variation on the standard six-string guitar tuning: E3•E2 A3•A2 D4•D3 G4•G3 B3•B3 E4•E4, moving from lowest (sixth) course to highest (first) course.

Lead Belly and some other players have doubled the lowest course

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