If you have ever checked out the specs on a Fender Jaguar or Jazzmaster, you may have noticed that it is not your typical electric guitar. It has two sets of pickups, which are usually two separate single coils. The bridge pickup is a single coil and the neck pickup can be thought of as a single coil split in half that is wired out of phase from each other.
The bridge pickup is a standard single coil, but the neck pickup is where this guitar gets interesting. Each part of the neck pickup has its own volume and tone control knob and there are three switches on the lower horn of the body. The first switch allows you to turn off either half of the neck pickup, allowing you to get many different sounds out of this guitar alone. The second switch allows you to put either half of the neck pickup in series or parallel, meaning that when it is in series both pickups act as one big humbucker while in parallel they sound like two individual single coils. The last switch puts both pickups in phase with each other, so when combined with putting them in series, you get a classic sounding humbucker sound.
This guitar was designed for lead guitar players who wanted more control over their sound than just one volume and tone control could provide. All
The baritone guitar is a guitar with a longer scale length, typically a larger body, and heavier internal bracing, so it can be tuned to a lower pitch. Gretsch, Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, ESP Guitars, PRS Guitars, Music Man, and Dean make a variety of baritone models (and others only occasionally), and custom builders such as Asher Guitars & Lap Steels build cus
You may have heard of the baritone guitar. It
In past weeks, we’ve looked at the open-back banjo and the resonator guitar as part of our series on so-called “folk” instruments. This week, we look at another instrument that is commonly seen in bluegrass bands and beyond: the baritone guitar.
It’s a guitar that’s tuned like a bass.
Most bluegrass bands have at least one guitarist playing chords to support the melody and provide rhythm. But, as with many other kinds of music, bass lines are important too — to keep time and give songs a solid foundation. That’s where the baritone guitar comes in.
The baritone guitar is typically tuned like a bass — E, A, D, G from lowest to highest string — but it looks and sounds like a standard guitar. It first came into use in the 1940s and ’50s; Nashville session guitarist Harold Bradley used one on many recordings by Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. And although you might not see it in every bluegrass band now, you’ll still see it quite often.
Most guitarists—even the big names like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page—play their guitars with regular tuning. For them, the only altered tunings are for specific songs. But for players who have mastered alternate tunings and open tunings, these can be used in all kinds of ways.
The baritone guitar is one of the most popular alternatives that’s available today. The baritone does not use a different tuning; rather, it’s a completely separate guitar from your standard six-string instrument. It uses a scale length that’s around 29 inches long (standard guitars are 25.5 inches). This makes the strings thicker and allows them to be tuned lower than standard tuning without sacrificing playability (the inviolable rule of alternate tunings).
Baritone guitars come close to the feel and sound of a standard electric bass like a Fender Jazz Bass or Gibson Thunderbird, but they still retain the look and feel of an electric guitar.
And best of all, once you learn how to play the baritone guitar, you can easily play any other guitar with normal tuning as well!
Here are five things you need to know about playing the baritone guitar:
1. The baritone guitar is a guitar tuned lower than a standard guitar.
2. A baritone guitar can be any guitar that has been tuned to a lower pitch than standard guitars, but the most common definition refers to guitars with a scale length greater than 25.5 inches but less than 27 inches.
3. Generally, there are two ways to tune a baritone guitar – B-B or A-A.
4. Baritone guitars can be used for unique styles of music and for creative and affecting effects in music where it is used as an accent instrument.
5. The baritone guitar is most often used by heavy metal musicians.
When I first took up guitar in my teenage years, I was immediately drawn to rock and metal. The music that moved me most had really heavy distorted guitars, and that was the sound I wanted to create. One of my favorite bands from those years was Metallica, and one of my favorite albums of theirs was