Virtues of lower tuning

[Scot63]

I posted a different pic of my playfully strange 1930s Regal-made B&J Serenader tenor guitar before. The neck has some relief and a bit of a twist, so in standard CGDA, it was difficult to play outside of first position. I paid very little for it, and judged trying to get that pearloid off and paying a luthier to plane the neck would just be too expensive to justify. I did knock around in octave mandolin tuning for a while, but it's been hanging on the wall for a couple of months, virtually undisturbed. Last night, I took it down and noticed that, much to my surprise, the lighter tension means that the intonation is pretty darn good and only gets ever slightly sharp at higher frets. It really has a nice mellow, but still clear sound. Sometimes neglect and less string tension make all the difference!

[whatitis]

My luthier fixed the slight bow in my tenor (also pearloid board) by re-fretting with jumbo frets and then leveling and dressing them. No, it isn't the 100% correct way of doing it, but may be the right choice on a lower value instrument to get it playable.

[Steve Ostrander]

When you say you tried OM tuning do you mean that you put a set of GDAE strings on? Or did you just detune to GDAE? Because a set of John Pearse GDAE tenor strings (or similar gauge) would probably sound better than detuning.

[Scot63]

Steve, I just detuned my D'Addario J66s. I'll definitely try the Pearse strings next time.

[Nate Banton]

Scot63,

Would you be willing to photograph the headstock of your cool tenor? I recently acquired a very similar guitar, with the same bridge and body shape (and headstock?), but with a traditional look. There's no name in the guitar, but I'm assuming it's a regal built tenor.

Cheers!

[Jess L.]

... nice mellow, but still clear sound. ...

That in itself is sufficient reason right there, the extra-mellow sound is why I've always liked playing lower-tuned instruments whenever practical.

Yeah you lose some volume (on acoustic instruments), not as big a deal if your group is already using microphones.

The other cool thing about slack strings, is that it opens up a whole new world of possibilities with bent notes that are so much more responsive with looser strings.

An aside, my penchant for bent notes saw its first applications in my oldtime banjo playing when I was a kid. It wasn't until decades later that I finally discovered electric guitar where, of course, bent notes are even more fun because of the additional response and sustain. Thought I'd mention that, because I've heard people say that the only reason people bend notes is because of some presumed electric-guitar background but that is clearly not always the case.

[s1m0n]

I have what's likely the cheap version of your Regal tg - same shape & materials, but a plain tobacco coloured paint job. I also tried to convert it to OM (gdae) tuning, and found the neck warping. Switching back to tg tuning - cgda - fixed things, although these days I have it strung a tone lower. Although I tune it only to itself, and play it alone, so who knows what pitch it actually is.

On its own terms its a sweet instrument, well worth the less than $200 I paid some years ago. I couldn't gig with it, but it's a nice axe for around-the-house playing. Usually it lives against the wall behind my favourite armchair, within easy arm's reach.

[Scot63]

Nate, I lost track of this thread til just now. Here's a closeup of the headstock, though it does say The Serenader at top and B&J on the bottom of the logo. This is true, as far as I know, of any of these Regal-produced B&Js—I have this one's parlor guitar cousin with exactly the same logo.

[Nate Banton]

Thanks for the photo!

I was hoping it matched the new (to me) tenor I recently had fixed up. But unfortunately I think it doesn't really match up. So I still have no idea who made this guitar (other than to guess that Regal may have made it).

Here's a photo of my headstock.





When I saw the hole for the guitar strap I thought maybe the holes in mine might have originally been for a strap (still might be), but you can see that someone tried to make it a six string at sometime in it's life.

I actually have a Regal guitar, and the design is similar, but not really the same. Totally different headstock obviously, but since Regal made guitars for lots of folks that doesn't matter. Everything is just a little different than the Regal. The biggest difference that makes me wonder if it was not made by regal is that the scale is 21 1/2" not 21".

Anyway, thanks again for the photo. I'll keep trying to figure out who made this thing. I'm not a guitar guy, so my experience doesn't count for much, but it seems like a really lovely guitar.

If anyone knows a good place/person to ask about who might have made this guitar, let me know.