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September 23, 2008
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I want a 4-string tenor guitar

A four-string tenor guitar

A four-string tenor guitar

I recently saw a strange guitar in a local music shop, Blue Ridge Music in Asheville. This guitar had only four strings on it, and it was built to only have four strings.

I picked that thing up. It’s called a tenor guitar. I’d never heard of such a thing. A little research revealed that they were originally made for banjo players who wanted to play guitar. So the tuning of a tenor guitar is similar to a banjo’s tuning. A tenor guitar is tuned to CDGA, from lowest to highest. Here’s a quick guide on harpkit.com.

I played with it for a bit. I really liked it. I love the open tuning, and I could see potential for writing songs in multiple open tunings. This guitar would allow me to quickly change tuning on only four strings, rather than a guitar’s standard six strings.

2 Responses to “I want a 4-string tenor guitar”


  1. Dick
    2009.12.05

    I’ve been looking for a tenor for some time now. They are very hard to find. Martin makes one but the entire body and neck are laminated. I’m skeptical! The photos of the Blue Ridge are very impressive. If anyone has experience with Blue Ridge instruments (good or bad) please let me know. Thanks, Dick


  2. Dave Bond
    2011.02.26

    I bought both of mine on Ebay. One archtop and one resonator. I stronly recommend archtops. I use mine when I write my songs.

    dave

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