About a year ago I wrote about the differences between Acoustic, Classical, and electric guitars. Since then people have asked about twelve-string guitars, which, as you might guess from the name, have twice as many strings as the more conventional six-string guitars. “Why do they have so many strings, and how can you play that many strings?” people ask.
Answering the second question first makes all those strings easier to understand.
The obvious difference from the conventional six-string guitar is that the twelve-string has an addition string alongside each of the conventional strings. When we play a twelve-string, instead of pressing down (called “fretting”) one string to make a note, we press down, or fret, two.
Fretting two strings at once means we can play the twelve string pretty much the same way we play a six string guitar. If you have mastered a conventional six string guitar, you can often pick up a twelve string and play it reasonably well. The neck will be much wider, so it will feel odd, but you can do it. (The wider neck, and having to press down all those extra strings, means the twelve usually isn’t a good choice for younger or less experienced players).
The reason for all those extra strings lies in how the extra strings are tuned. They are tuned to give a brighter, higher-pitched sound to the guitar.
The four extra strings next to the lower-pitch strings (the upper strings on the guitar — I know, it’s confusing….) are tuned an octave higher than the original strings. The last two extra strings are tuned in unison with the two highest-pitch original strings.
The additional strings create additional “voices,” if you will, rather like having a choir sing a song rather than just one singer. In a sense, the twelve-string guitar creates its own depth and harmony.
Most of the extra voices are higher pitched that their six-string counterparts. That means the twelve-string has an unusually high, bright sound. This doesn’t work in all music, just as choirs don’t work in all music, but it’s often used to add a cheery sound to a song.
Here’s a song many people will recognize. It was composed by Roger Hodgson (pronounced “HODGE-son” like “hodge-podge”) specifically for the twelve-string, and originally recorded by his band, Supertramp.
Like most recordings of twelve-strings, it purposely emphasizes the bright sound of the guitar, making it sound much brighter and more jangley than it otherwise might. But then, that’s what makes the song distinctive.
(By the way, the YouTube video that Roger Hodgson said somebody sent him is here. It’s worth a listen. Along with conventional instruments, they use some toy instruments, and the results are really quite good.)
I find it instructive that, at the end of the song, Roger Hodgson pushes his young backup singers to the front to take a bow. He has sold tens of millions of records and CDs, something that many people would let go to their heads. It’s encouraging to see a prominent and successful person modeling such modest behavior.
But back to our story of twelve-string guitars…
Of course you can’t make a twelve-string by simply adding more strings. For one thing, there isn’t room. That’s why the neck is so much wider.
And of course we need some way to tune all those added strings, so we need more tuning machines and someplace to put them. That’s why the headstock covers so much more real estate on a twelve.
All acoustic guitars have an array of stiffeners on the inside of the guitar. The tension from all the additional strings on a twelve would overwhelm normal stiffeners, so a twelve must be built much more strongly.
The challenge is in making the twelve-string guitar body stronger without making it too stiff. The added strength, if done poorly, would deaden the sound of the guitar, so twelves are more expensive and difficult to build well.
Given the size of the headstock, it’s easy to miss that the body of a twelve string is always quite large, what is called in the business a “dreadnought” size (prounounced “dread”, like “bread”, and nought, like “not”: “DREAD-not”).
Guitar builders (called luthiers) make the guitar body so big because all those relatively high-pitch strings naturally give the guitar a bright, high sound. The large body counteracts this by naturally emphasizing the lower notes, giving the guitar a more balanced sound.
Given the efforts of luthiers to strengthen the bass sound of twelve-strings, it’s interesting to note that Roger Hodgson plays much of this song with his left thumb over the top of the fretboard. This mutes the lower notes, and emphasizes the high notes that are such a trademark of this song.
So if you ever have a chance to play a twelve-string, be prepared to do at least twice as much tuning, but try it out. They are interesting guitars. And, if you give a little bit of practice, you can play a song that almost everybody recognizes.
Copyright 2019 by Toni Pfau. All rights reserved.
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