[Dixielandjazz] Lute or Tenor Guitar?

[Tony Orr]

 These days a guitar with 4 strings is usually referred to as a tenor guitar regardless of the number of frets or tuning. 
There were 4-string Gibson Guitars with L5 style bodies with both 19 fret necks tuned the same as a tenor banjo and, 22 frets tuned the same as a plectrum banjo. Models were TG4 and PG4 respectively. A plectrum guitar these days is usually a 6-string flat-top such as the Martin D28.

I occasionally play an early 1930s plectrum guitar, a Gibson PG4 tuned CGBD. A nice F-hole arch-top accoustic but, lacking the depth of a 6-string guitar. It looks identical to a guitar seen in Eddie Condon's early photos. He did play other models, too of course.

Tony Orr
Wombat Jazz Band. Melbourne

 

 

 


 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen G Barbone <barbonestreet at earthlink.net>
To: Tony Orr <jsbarque at netscape.net>
Cc: Bill Haesler <bhaesler at bigpond.net.au>; Dixieland Jazz Mailing List <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thu, Mar 17, 2011 2:26 am
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] Lute or Tenor Guitar?


If you look up Tenor Guitar on Wikipedia it references tenor guitars  

as lute shaped early on. it also mentions Condon as a Plectrum Guitar  

player, Gibson L7, which guitar he used in NYC at Nick's in the 1930's  

and at his own joint after WW 2 until his passing.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenor_guitar



In Condon's "We Called it Music", he says on page 122:



"The banjo had gone out of fashion while I was playing a lute with the  

Blue Blowers."



That would tie into your video clip of Condon with them in 1931,  

playing what is referred to as a lute.



Question is, What is a lute? Perhaps if one uses the broad definition  

of "any plucked stringed instrument with a neck and a deep round  

back", then Condon could properly call what he played a lute.



Also, on various "lute" websites, one finds all sorts of posts about  

lutes and lute guitars like this one from a classical lute site.



"The German lute/guitar is in all respects a normal guitar, tuned like  

it and played like it. In the German Romantic music, the lute had a  

much higher standing than the guitar and                       

represented the romantic yearning for nature, simplicity, etc. The  

romantic image of the lute      fitted better than the guitar's image."

"However, to bring the lute back was not an option: too difficult, too  

impractical. Nobody could play the lute, but everybody could play the  

guitar, so they simply made a lute-shaped guitar,  which they referred  

to as 'laute' (lute)."

"As far as I know, the Germans are the only ones to make such an  

instrument. . . ."

Oskar Chilesotti played a "guitarlute" in Italy as early as 1889.



The writer must be a "Classical" guy and not into Folk or Jazz. <grin>



I guess definitions of lutes, guitars and guitar lutes etc., are like  

jazz. They are whatever you want them to be. <grin>



Cheers,

Steve Barbone

www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband











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