Arnie Gamble:: Ten String Guitar

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Ten String Guitar
Rosewood Back & Sides
CedarTop
Ebony fingerboard

The ten-string guitar, or or LAUDARRA (a combination of the Spanishwords for lute and guitar), has four more bass strings than the guitar. The seventh string is tuned to "C" below middle "C", and the remaining three are tuned downward in whole tones. The advantages to this arrangement are primarily extra basses to execute chord inversions not possible on six strings. There is also the advantage of being able to play in key signatures that ordinarily would not sound full on the traditional guitar. On any stringed instrument, sympathetic vibrations from the unused strings enhance the resonance of the played note. On the conventional guitar, because of its tuning, some of the notes in the chromatic scale do not receive as much sympathetic help as the others. With the Laudarra's added four strings, all the notes in the chromatic scale receive an equal amount of assistance.