Post by ocarolan on Dec 24, 2020 22:57:13 GMT
I believe you are right, Andy. Thomas V. Jones discussed the early roots of the baritone guitar in Premier Guitar Magazine, March 2014:
""A hundred years ago, the Germans produced baritone guitars,” says guitar historian George Gruhn, owner of Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, “but I don’t know much about them. Those were acoustic instruments, of course. They were experimenting with all voices.”
In that group of early baritone-range instruments, I’d also add the mandocello (such as the K series instruments built by Gibson between 1905 and 1920), and maybe even go way back to the 1400s to the viola da gamba—a cello-like instrument with between five and seven strings for lower range, as well as frets (old strings tied around the neck) for better chord intonation. These instruments were the baritones of the mandolin and bowed-instrument families, respectively."
Keith
I think there’s a difference. Baritone instruments of the kind discussed above were designed to have the same tuning but an octave lower. What Ralph designed was a guitar that could be tuned from somewhere between standard and a 5th lower. I’ll get the details.
The first sentence is the crucial one "A hundred years ago, the Germans produced baritone guitars,” says guitar historian George Gruhn, owner of Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, “but I don’t know much about them. Those were acoustic instruments, of course. They were experimenting with all voices.”
All voices...guitars were designed a long time ago with shorter scales (eg terz) and longer scales too - to get different ranges and guitars that would sit well together playing in different ranges. Some undoubtedly would be an octave lower, but also, given the development of other instruments (as also mentioned in the quote) it stands to reason that some would be in the true baritone range.
Would love to read anything you turn up re Ralph and baritones, Chris - thanks.
keith