You may not be familiar with ani diFranco. This youTube video is of Ani plaing a beautiful looking (to me) four string guitar, used to be called tipples. I first became aware of Ani deFranco’s music when she toured here, and when I saw a video of here doing ‘i’m not angry anymore’, I was sold forever.
FYI… it’s spelled… DiFranco. And yes, she’s awesome.
Thanks Mr Tennis.
In my original post I had the spelling of Ani diFranco as deFranco.
I appreciate you pointing out my typo. But i have managed to get McLaughlin and de Lucia corect on my other blog. http://the-guitarplayer.com
Regardless of this, I’ll continue to post what I consider to be great information about acoustic guitar and help expose some of the players that the broader community needs to hear to inspire them in developing their own music.
Tony Hogan
She’s an musician that I’ve never heard before. Her style and lyrics are so authentic that I quite liked her. Thanks.
Hey Tony,
I think this is a tenor guitar as opposed to a tiple…
A tiple as made by Martin guitars has 10 strings and is tuned like a uke.
A tenor guitar is tuned in fifths, usually CGDA.
The sound is rather different!
Warmest regards,
Terence
Thanks Terence.
It could easily be a tenor, yes. But there were 4 string tiples (one p, excuse my spelling in my original post. My memory of them was from when I was doing guitar construction some years ago, it may have been in the Larson book where I read about them). I saw what I thought was a tiple in a shop in 1996, I guy said it was a tiple and I assumed that they were that size, after seeing the dfinition below, you could very well be correct. Thanks for the heads up.
Here’s a definition of a tiple.
tiple (Spanish, “little guitar”; pron. “tipple”) a miniature guitar about the size of a ukelele, derived from South American traditions. It has ten steel strings arranged in four courses in ukelele tuning: A D F# B. The courses are strung double-triple-triple-double, and the inner string of each triple course is one octave down from its neighbors. It might have been featured prominently in a Disney film, “Honey, I Shrunk the 12-String”. It was made by the Martin company in the 1920s and was still in their catalog in 1980. While it rarely shows up in North American folk, it’s a favorite with South American performers. See also taropatch for another ukelele relative.
quote: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/traditional-music/ency/t2.htm
I was looking at her guitar and I noticed that her top 3 strings look like the wound type…and i look at my tenor guitar and it has two unwound strings and two thin strings…and her tenor sounds like it has a deeper tone than mine….
so does anybody know how she strings each of her strings on her tenor…i looked up and down goog and cant find out why…or what kind of string she uses to string each of her strings…cause i can tell those definately are not the same strings i use…
Joel
I wish I could answer that for you Joel but I don’t honestly know.
If you have a recording of you playing yours I’bd love to hear it
Tony
Okay…well I am on youtube…if you search “Ani Joel” you will see me on there… I covered Ani’s song “Hypnotized” (which she plays on her tenor) and “Origami” which is another song she plays on her tenor. My username is “Creatiive” so thats how you will know its me!
thanks a bunch!
- joel
I am as always powerless to her words, she has so much power i just want to shut up and listen……..and sing along………i Love Ani Difranco so much,and she has had such an impact on my life and my and my thought process, she is amazing!