12-string Manifesto, part 1

All the guitar family instruments I play are double-course.  I abandoned single-course instruments over 10 years ago.   My main instruments are:

• 36-string Double Contraguitar
• 30-string Contra-Alto guitar
• 17-string Contraguitar
• 16-string Contraguitar
• 17-string Hybrid Extended Classical guitar
• 15-string Extended Classical guitar

All these are double-course instruments.

Prior to moving to these instruments, I performed and recorded on 12-string guitar.  Around 2010, I migrated away from 12-string instruments and focused on the Contraguitars.  I kept my 12-strings, but never returned to them.

Until about six months ago.

In the past six months or so I feel like I've completely rediscovered 12-string instruments. It's such a profound rediscovery that it feels like a total discovery. I had stopped playing 12-strings back around 2009. That was when the first Contraguitar came into being and that was a 14-string instrument. Which was soon followed up by 16-, 17-, and 18-string versions of the Contraguitar. I think I've mentioned that I have all but abandoned 6-string instruments. Or to be more precise, all single-course instruments. About four months ago, I picked up my Martin 12-string just to see how it was doing. In many ways it felt and sounded like an entirely different instrument.  

It may seem difficult to believe, but I had been so consumed with the Contraguitars and the KK series of instruments from Emerald that I had completely put 12-string instruments out of my mind. I think part of it was the limited range of a six-course instrument compared to the vastly expanded range of eight- and nine-course instruments. Not only the additional courses but also the much wider registers of tuning they provided. I bought a Martin X12 a few months ago, and began to experiment with it. Not just using my own intervallic tunings, but dropping it into extreme baritone registers where it was never designed/built/intended to go.

I felt I could make this happen in those extreme baritone registers; for example, B and even A below concert E tuning, by using much heavier strings and correspondingly performing the necessary tweaks with the truss rod and bridge saddle. It not only worked but worked extremely well and much better than I would have imagined. This has really fired my imagination, passion, and excitement for 12-string instruments once again. It's all because I found that they can indeed be put in much different registers in much different tunings and work perfectly.  

In addition to all this since I abandoned 12-strings around the 2010 period, I've developed using instruments in cello position.  That has increased the capacity of my technique by an order of magnitude and I'm constantly discovering and learning new things that I can do in cello position which are impossible in traditional position.  Mapping this technique onto a 12-string is another entirely new revelation.  This has opened areas that were inaccessible to me and didn't even exist 15 years ago for me on a 12-string.  Between being able to put these into extreme baritone registers, using my own intervallic tunings on them, and using them in cello position has transformed 12-string instruments into something entirely new for me. I have literally dozens of intervallic tunings; most of them are inaccessible due to limited instrument availability.  Adding two 12-strings to the lineup gives me access to two additional sets of intervallic tunings at all times, plus each of the twelves are in different registers from each other, so that also brings an entirely different register and context to which I otherwise do not have access.

My Martin D-28 12-string is currently in D tuning.  The Martin X12 is currently in A baritone tuning (fifth below concert E). Hence, both are below concert tuning, yet well above the Contra guitar registers, which are contra E (one octave below concert, in bass register) and contra D (one full step below the contra E tuning).

Then there is the matter of the Santa Cruz 12-string Alto and the Santa Cruz KK series 12-string Contra guitar. The 12-string Contra is now in Contra E tuning. The Alto is in A above concert E tuning. So there's two more 12-string platforms and again in entirely different registers and each in their own intervallic tunings. 

I expect there will be more 12-string presence on future album projects.

-kk