New toy
I bought a 12-string guitar. For the nerds amongst you it is a Martin MX X Series D-X2E (MX meaning built in Mexico rather than Pennsylvania.) It is at the low end of the Martin range but it does what I need it to and does it well and certainly came out ahead of a Taylor I tried for comparison, to my ears at least: the Taylor was in many respects a ‘better’ guitar but I preferred the Martin’s low and mid-range response. I could probably have done better on the used market but used means no warranty or aftercare.
I bought it for two reasons, the first being simply that I wanted a 12-string guitar. The second is because I’m playing some songs with a friend of mine at an open mic and, if that continues (and I think it will) a 12-string adds to the harmonic possibilities for at least some of the songs we’re working on.
However, now that I’ve played it for a while other thoughts occur. It seems to me that, at least in terms of possibilities, the 12-string is a different instrument to the 6-string.
Way back in the 1970s when I started playing guitar my interests grew beyond strumming into finger-picking and the kind of playing to be heard on the UK folk scene mostly, though not entirely, influenced by Davy Graham and Martin Carthy. Later, I heard blues and ragtime players and tried to learn some of that and messed around with altered tunings. I’m not claiming to have been any good at it, but it kept me amused and out of mischief and the influence lingers.
I’m getting a similar feeling as I mess around with the 12-string. There are some obvious technical differences in playing such as favouring chord voicings with open strings and the trickiness of catching the string courses properly with a thumb-pick to get the effect, but there are others. In particular, I think there are possibilities from treating the octave strings as more than just resonating strings. I’m having a hard time finding people who have done that whom I can initially copy as I figure things out, though Leo Kottke and Mark Spoelstra in America and Michel Gentils in France spring to mind, as does John Butler in Australia. And inevitably, my mind turns to a second, used 12-string to tune to DADGAD and explore possibilities. I dislike the term ‘Celtic’ for lots of reasons, but I think what has come to be called ‘Celtic Music’ is full of possibilities on 12 strings.
To be clear, I have no plans to buy yet another guitar, but if I spotted a 12-string in a charity/thrift shop with a neck that wasn’t pulled out of shape then I’d find it hard to resist.
Here are Michel Gentils and Mark Spoelstra.
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