Misplaced Pages

*e' - b - g - d - A - E - C - A♯ - G♯ - F♯ - the tuning most preferred by Yepes
*e' - b - g - d - A - E - B - F♯ - C♯ - G♯ and various other tunings - see http://www.tenstringguitar.com/tuningsforthe10string.html

Be honest. You mean (for the last 4 strings) B2 - F#2 - C#2 - G#1. A totally redundant B, which is playable on 5 fret II, 6 fret VII, and adds no resonance that is wanting, and is useless in terms of making the low basses available as stops that are not available as open strings, hence the augmented octaves we find in its transcriptions where there should be minor 2nds. And the 10th string that is lower than any note you will find in any lute music (except Bach).

And still other tunings are used:
*e' - b - g - d - A - E - D - C - Bˌ - Aˌ  see 
*e' - b - g - d - A - E - D - Aˌ - C - F  see 
*http://www.cathedralguitar.com/MoreThanSix2.html
*Stephan Schmidt's tunings used esp. for Bach - see ,  (partially mentioned in the article)

And tell me, what tuning does Stephan Schmidt use to play the concerto and 12 other pieces by Ohana, or other original 10-string guitar music, Maderna etc.? Yepes's, of course! Let's not be 'selectively honest'.

*Egberto Gismonti, Dominic Frasca also play the Modern 10-string with their own tunings (this fact is included in the article!)

Yes, but the difference is, I don't see Dominic publishing method books and making web sites with Yepes's pictures on it trying to convince the world to adopt his way of playing the guitar by some twisty-turny recourse to the Master . In a sense, Dominic doesn't play '10-string guitar'; he doesn't play '6-string guitar'. Dominic Frasca plays MUSIC. I have his recordings and respect his work very much. No one will confuse his 10-string playing with 'the standard', just as no one would confuse his 6-string playing with anything traditional. It is an outsider aesthetic, not a desire to colonize.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 00:40, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

*

• In fact Yepes' preferred tuning seems to be rather rarely used today (or at least not more than any other tunings), and I think this article is trying to cover up that fact!

This is an encyclopaedia. It is appropriate for a reference book (or web site) to include information that is factual and/or of historical significance. You open any encyclopaedia or dictionary of music and tell me which 10-string guitarists, say, the Oxford Dictionary of Music, deems (at this moment) historically significant enough for inclusion in a reference book. This is the Romantic 10-string guitars and their composers, and Yepes's 10-string guitar. There is already enough shameless self-promotion of certain individuals' ideas in their own web sites that unethically hold a monopoly on the term "tenstringguitar".

There is also a book on the Modern Ten-String guitar and it would be great to include it in the bibliography:

Playing the Ten-String Guitar: An Approach Guide for Guitarists (Paperback) by Janet Marlow ASIN 1599752611, ISBN 1599752611 DearJonas (talk) 19:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

As an educational tool, this product leaves much to be desired. For those more familiar with the ten-string guitar as invented by Narciso Yepes, its acoustics and its rationale, this method book/DVD is evidently misinformed.

I would like to draw attention to just some of the problems:

1. In the front matter the author states falsely that "Narciso Yepes heard that there were FOUR tones with less sustain due to missing sympathetic resonance on the six-string guitar" . In truth, there are EIGHT notes (from the twelve that make the chromatic octave) that do not have string resonance (i.e. a sympathetic response from an adjacent string). That is not only on six-string guitars but also ten-string guitars that do not have the specific tuning and string setup invented by Yepes. These cannot lay claim to having string resonance for all the twelve tones in all positions on the treble strings. This is an indisputable fact of acoustics, a science which as such cannot be fudged. Besides, Yepes clearly indicates EIGHT missing resonances in various articles and interviews as well as in his Speech of Ingression into the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando delivered on 30 April 1989: "The strings that I have added incorporate all the natural resonance that the instrument lacked in EIGHT of the twelve notes of the equal tempered scale."

2. The author does not define the term "resonance", which seems to be used more in the lay sense as signifying the vibration of strings rather than in its proper acoustic sense (which is actually vitally important to a correct understanding of the workings of the ten-string guitar). This is evident from the chapter on "Controlling Resonance" in which controlling "resonance" is equated with "stopping bass notes from sustaining". In other words, "resonance" is equated with a vibrating bass string that has been actively plucked. In fact, this is not resonance, but simply a vibrating string. Resonance is the tendency of a system (like a string) to vibrate sympathetically at a particular frequency (the fundamental or its overtones frequencies) in response to energy induced at that frequency (that is, on ANOTHER string).

3. No adequate explanation of how this resonance actually functions is offered anywhere in this book. In fact, the singular correct tuning that adds all eight missing resonances is relegated to an aside comment in parenthesis. In addition, it is incorrectly claimed that the author's "own" method of tuning "satisfies the needed sustain" (Preface). As a fact of acoustics, the author's tuning system does not provide sympathetic string resonance for all the notes of a chromatic scale, nor does it equalize the sustain, resonance, timbre, or volume among the twelve notes of the octave (which is the entire primary purpose behind the invention of the modern 10-string guitar). The tuning system used in this method, for example, supplies no resonance for the notes of F-natural and B-flat (usually supplied by the 8th string that should correctly be tuned to Bb2), neither does it offer any resonance for C's.

4. In the Preface, the author claims that "In my own process over twenty five years I have developed the tuning" that forms the basis for this method. In fact, this method of tuning had already been fully developed by 1982, not "over twenty five years". Records of this are in the March 1982 edition of Guitar Player magazine. Furthermore, this concept is therein attributed to Oscar Castro-Neves (March 1982: 20), not to Janet Marlow's "own process".

5. The transcriptions of baroque music (by Bach and Weiss) offered here are fraught with stylistic problems too numerous to list but for a few. For example, the ornaments (which are an integral part of baroque music that cannot be left out) have been inexplicably omitted (eg. trills in bars 8 and 15 of the Weiss Courante). Furthermore, stylistically inappropriate melodic intervals have been introduced in the bass line. For example, in bars 1-3 of the Courante, instead of the smooth bass line moving by steps from A2 to G#2 to F#2 ) - as intended by Weiss in good baroque style - we find erratic leaps of an augmented octave and a minor 7th . Where this descending line should be structurally mirrored in bars 36-38, we find again an erratic undermining of the formal and stylistic elements of the composition, simply to keep the bass notes on open strings. (As such it seems rather insincere that the author lists "the correct use of octaves and bass lines intended by the composer" as a justification for using the 10-string guitar when this is clearly not the case in her own use of the instrument.) Also, very little consideration seems to be shown for open basses ringing together where they should not, for example, the first three bass notes of the Courante all continue to ring together forming two dissonances (augmented octave and minor 7th) where the composer intends a clean line in the bass. That is, the bass line should be a melody, not a "harmony", as Marlow terms the resultant dissonance of this simplistic and far from masterful approach to playing the ten-string guitar.

6. Contrary to what this method claims, transcriptions of baroque music are not the best place to start one's ten-string guitar repertoire. As the abovementioned problems with this DVD illustrate, the results speak for themselves when individuals fail to be acquainted first with the actual acoustic workings of the ten-string guitar's resonance and second with the technique of playing the low basses at their correct pitches as stops on the 7th string (which should correctly, and with good reason, be the lowest in pitch). Baroque music, which is very difficult to play well with a sense for its ornamentation and style, is certainly no place for anyone to begin to approach the ten-string guitar.

Finally, this method has very little to do with the ten-string guitar as invented by Narciso Yepes or with the latter's approach to playing the instrument. There is simply no justification for the claim (made by Stephen B. Rekas of Mel Bay Publications, quoted on the back matter) that this is "carrying the legacy of Narciso Yepes into the 21st century." Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 06:44, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Article name

I've unilaterally done a bit of a cleanup, looking at a merge (but I couldn't find anything to merge), renaming this article to match the convention used at twelve string guitar, and adding some links to and from baroque guitar which is a far more significant instrument than either of the modern tens IMO. But the naming of the page about twelvestrings is not really decided either. A bit of discussion but no conclusion.

I don't really care what it's named, I don't think there's any consistency across authorities or any clear leader, but I do think we should be consistent. See Talk:twelve string guitar#Article name.

Lots more cleanup needed to this article IMO, there's lots of unsourced opinion here, some of it notable, some of it possibly not. Andrewa (talk) 17:54, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The article name has now been changed back, without discussion here obviously, but there is some in the edit summaries. The most important I think is:

• In the ENGLISH language one hyphenates terms containing numbers. Ten-string and 10-string are the correct. Fix the term that has been misspelt (i.e. 12 string guitar) and not this.

It's not actually a matter of spelling, and at Misplaced Pages, we follow Misplaced Pages:naming conventions which adopts a descriptive rather than prescriptive approach to English. These are also reflected in the Manual of Style.

But on closer inspection, these do seem to support hyphenation. It's not all that clear, but see particularly Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style#Hyphens. Hmmm. Andrewa (talk) 04:16, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

See Talk:Twelve string guitar#Requested move, which proposes that other articles conform to the naming convention now adopted by this one. Note particularly that if this move is rejected, it could be seen as a precedent for moving this article again. Andrewa (talk) 15:41, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Baroque guitar

Article currently reads Baroque guitars typically had five courses, of which either four or five were double-strung making a total of nine or ten strings. Since the term 'course' signifies a pair of strings that effectively function as one string, baroque guitars should not be confused with ten-string guitars. (The same holds for so-called 12-string acoustic guitars which are simply guitars with six courses in place of six strings.)

This frankly is pedantry; Twelve-string guitars (of which both acoustic and electric exist, see my user page) have twelve strings and are universally called this, and most people looking for an article on what they call a ten-string guitar will be looking for the baroque guitar, which is an extremely significant instrument historically and even has some current usage, particularly in playing some of the famous and highly significant music from this era.

The subjects of this article are, by way of contrast, musical curiousities. We can't write their histories yet of course, and they may one day turn out to be extremely significant instruments, and they certainly have their advocates. But unless and until their day comes, we need to deal with the current reality that the baroque guitar is as yet and by far the most significant type of guitar with ten strings.

My attempt to modify the lead to say there were three types of ten-string guitar including the baroque has been reverted, and the (perhaps POV?) claim that the baroque ought not to be called a ten-string guitar added to the article, perhaps in response.

I don't want an edit war. What matters most is just that people who come here looking for information on the baroque guitar can easily find it. So I've added a hatnote which avoids stating that the baroque is a ten-string guitar. Is that a better solution for everybody? Andrewa (talk) 03:17, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I've now rewritten the above text to try to remove the POV tone while retaining what was accurate and relevant in the content, which was most of it.

See Talk:Twelve string guitar#A more detailed look at hyphens for my latest thoughts on article name and content and how they relate. Andrewa (talk) 21:11, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I doubt very much most people will be looking for a baroque guitar when they are looking for "ten-string guitar", quite the contrary. Frankly, the term "twelve-string guitar" is incorrect; dare I say, simply ignorant. The term "course" has historical precedence and is the correct technical term for a pair of strings that function as one. People (even if they are the masses)could do a little more to educate themselves in such things rather than trying to re-write history. The same holds for baroque guitars which are five-course guitars, not ten-string guitars. Let us not forget that these too were historical curiosities that are now extinct from living music except amongst museum practitioners on their quixotic quest to regain a past sound for thoroughly modern ears. I think your hatnote to baroque guitars is out of place here, but I will let it stand. I wonder if you would like it if I put a hatnote to 10-string guitar in the baroque guitar article? Hm? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.94.133.166 (talk) 06:30, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I doubt very much most people will be looking for a baroque guitar when they are looking for "ten-string guitar", quite the contrary. See Talk:Twelve string guitar.

Frankly, the term "twelve-string guitar" is incorrect; dare I say, simply ignorant. It seems you are advocating a change in the standard terminology. This seems pretty futile and pointless to me, frankly, but more important, Misplaced Pages is not the place for it. And meanwhile, policy is to use whatever terminology is most commonly recognised. You can of course try to change this policy, but I'd advise you that this is unlikely to succeed.

The term "course" has historical precedence and is the correct technical term for a pair of strings that function as one. Agree, sort of. It can be more then two.

People (even if they are the masses)could do a little more to educate themselves in such things rather than trying to re-write history. Ummm, historically, the twelve-string is called the twelve-string, and it has twelve strings in six courses, and I own three of them (guitars that is), and nobody I know gets particularly confused about what is a string and what is a course. So, what's the problem?

Please bear in mind that Misplaced Pages is written by the masses for the masses, and particularly in order to help us to educate ourselves.

The same holds for baroque guitars which are five-course guitars, not ten-string guitars. True, in a pedantic sort of way, but I still maintain that some barogue guitars are ten string guitars.

Let us not forget that these too were historical curiosities that are now extinct from living music except amongst museum practitioners on their quixotic quest to regain a past sound for thoroughly modern ears. Disagree. That is, you make some very good points, but this rhetoric isn't the sort of input that is suitable for an encyclopedia, and some of it is even a bit out of touch with reality IMO. But I enjoyed reading it.

I think your hatnote to baroque guitars is out of place here, but I will let it stand. I wonder if you would like it if I put a hatnote to 10-string guitar in the baroque guitar article? Hm? All Misplaced Pages articles are owned by the whole community (in fact, all pages are). Adding a hatnote just to make a point is unlikely to help your case. Please don't. On the other hand, if it improves Misplaced Pages, please do. Andrewa (talk) 13:50, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Removed text

(A course is a pair or more of strings that effectively function as one string.) While many baroque guitars have ten strings, they are not correctly called ten-string guitars. Note that this terminology clashes with that of the so-called twelve-string guitar, which has six courses each of two strings.

The unsourced and POV claim that five course guitars are not correctly called ten string guitars (despite their having ten strings, d'oh) tips this over the line to being POV. And do we really need to be told what a course is, when we already have a wikilink for those who wish more information? Of course not; This has become a little essay to promote particular types of ten-stringed guitars. Andrewa (talk) 08:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Baroque Guitars are NOT "ten-string guitars"

Andrew, frankly, you are mistaken. It is incorrect to refer to a baroque guitar as a "ten-string guitar". No one refers to the baroque lute as "the 24-string lute", but correctly as the 13-course lute. This is a well-established musicological/organological convention. "12-string guitar" is the only exception to this, and that is only because the term has been disseminated by the popular "cult(ure)" in the usual brainwashed ignorance of the masses. If two strings function as one string, they are a COURSE, not two separate strings. In contrast, a ten-stringed guitar has ten separate strings each of which can be separately fretted. This is not the case on the baroque guitar, which effectively only has five courses. Moreover, the term "ten-string" guitar has come to signify a particular instrument, which is NOT a baroque guitar. You are evidently not a musicologist/organologist/semiologist/semantician so I don't see what you think you will achieve by being bothersome about this issue, which relates to organology and semantics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.94.133.166 (talk) 08:12, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The 10-string guitar is not just Yepes.

Vincenzo Macaluso

• http://digital-library.csun.edu/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=exact&CISOFIELD1=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOROOT=/IGRAdiscography&CISOBOX1=Macaluso%2C+Vincenzo
• http://digital-library.csun.edu/IGRAdiscography/images/JT-B17D02b.gif

• http://www.xmission.com/~numa/Macaluso1981.pdf

Janet Marlow

• http://digital-library.csun.edu/IGRAdiscography/images/JT-B16D15b.gif
• http://digital-library.csun.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/IGRAdiscography&CISOPTR=1220&CISOBOX=1&REC=1

It seems like there's more than one way to tune an instrument. And it seems like people are entitled to their opinions.

I'm filled with disbelief, every time I look at this wikipedia page. An attack on "false fact" is justifiable, if done in an appropriately respectful way. But attacks on any person's freedoms of choice (including on how to tune a guitar; experimentations; etc) is not merry, is it!?

The article still uses the term "true modern 10-string guitar" 1, in referring to a ten-string guitar with a particular tuning. How neutral is that? Downunder thesea (talk) 14:19, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

No one is attacking anyone's personal freedoms here. (As if that were even possible.) You have TOTAL freedom to do whatever you like. This is not an issue of that wikipedia key phrase "neutrality". Misplaced Pages also maintains that this is an encyclopaedia and as such is not the place to advertise the opinions and activities of living individuals that have not been proven historically significant. This is not always enforced, but I am enforcing it in this article because what this topic has long lacked is reliable information and what it has long had more than enough of is misinformation and uninformed opinion.

While we're advertising Janet Marlow, yet again, why don't you include a link to her DVD "approach guide"? (And make sure to read the first Customer review, which has NOTHING to do with "neutrality" issues and "attacks on any person's freedoms of choice", but some concrete problems:

• http://www.amazon.com/Playing-Ten-String-Guitar-Approach-Guitarists/dp/1599752611/

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 04:24, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Response to the Above

"Guitars with ten strings" are not just Yepes. But the instrument Yepes invented IS a guitar with the singular acoustic properties that only that instrument has as a result of its singular tuning. In fact, it was invented with an understanding of acoustics in order to have those properties. Furthermore, the laws of physics determine the number of strings in relation to the tuning. Tuned correctly, the instrument has those acoustic properties with 10 strings, but tuned incorrectly, the number of strings MUST be MORE THAN TEN in order to approach similar (but never the same) acoustic characteristics.

Macaluso, in the interview you quote, ADMITS he was ignorant of the fact that the instrument he used had been invented by Yepes. No doubt he was also ignorant as to the correct tuning of the instrument or the techniques of playing it. No surprise that he ultimately rejected it!

Marlow, likewise never studied the 10-string guitar with Yepes (with whom she broke ties after the first time he ever heard her play on one), and (if the totally false "information" of her site www.tenstringguitar.com is anything to go by) she also seems to have no understanding of the acoustics behind Yepes's invention. I mean of course such misinformation as her untenable claims that "Narciso Yepes heard that there were FOUR tones with less sustain" (her method book), or that "there are FOUR missing sympathetic resonances on the six string guitar" (the site), or that her method of stringing and tuning "round out the resonance of the instrument as does his " (quoted in a 1982 article). All of these claims are, of course, UNTENABLE according to the laws of physics that govern our existence, or worse, lies because Marlow is evidently well aware that Yepes always explained that the 6-string guitar lacks the same response in EIGHT tones of the chromatic scale on the treble strings and that these EIGHT resonances are added by the strings C {C and G}, Bb {Bb and F}, Ab {Ab and Eb}, Gb {Gb and Db}. Marlow even CITES in her 1980 article a 1978 interview with Yepes in which Yepes clearly says EIGHT. So why does Janet say FOUR? Eh? Ignorance or deliberate mischief? Pick your pick, because it has to be one or the other. I can say it because it's the TRUTH and it's in her own words in the public domain. So bad luck, Janet, you've been caught red-handed.

What "fills" one with "disbelief" is not that I maintain the facts on this entry, but that people who clearly either don't know what they're talking about OR deliberately intend to mislead readers still persist in publishing completely false information, and that they use the name, fame and image of Yepes to bolster their own reputations in the process. That is, despite doing nothing to understand or to promote understanding of the instrument that Yepes invented, its acoustics and its performance practice. What "fills" one with even more "disbelief" is that Marlow sycophants come here and expect that those of us who actually understand the concepts of a) Yepes's invention and b) encyclopaedias, that we will just give in and say, sure, take this over as advertisement space, as if sites and publications like www.tenstringguitar.com do not already spread the misinformation wide and thick enough.

Furthermore, at the risk of again sounding like a broken record: This is an encyclopaedia, and encyclopaedias are not billboards or magazines that rent out advertisement space for (mis)infomercials. When/IF some individuals' experimental stringing/tuning systems prove themselves historically significant, then that will be the day they belong in an encyclopaedia. Until then, there are two types of ten-stringED guitars that belong here that ARE historically significant: 1) 10-stringed harp-guitars of the 19th century, 2) the instrument invented by Yepes (which is NOT merely a guitar with X number of strings, but a guitar with certain acoustic and interpretative characteristics that are CONTINGENT UPON THE TUNING of the added resonators).

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 14:14, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

(still) A marginal instrument with marginal repertoire

Compared with the standard six-string guitar, ten-string guitars (like 11-string alto guitars) are relatively rare. Both the romantic and the modern type have relatively little repertoire, compared to that of the six-string guitar.

Note: this does not mean that the ten-string guitar is not interesting. And it does not mean that it will remain a marginal instrument (though I suspect it will!). PS: I don't find alto guitarist making so much noise about their instrument. Humble guys, I suppose... 9frontier9 (talk) 11:33, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Response to the above

Yepes's guitar does not have as much original repertoire as the 6-string guitar???? First of all, Yepes's guitar is still first and foremost a classical guitar and all 6-string repertoire is also its repertoire! (If you don't get that much, then there's a serious gap in your understanding of why Yepes invented his instrument.) Secondly, it's only been around since 1964, and it already received the 30-minute suite "Si le jour parait" by Ohana before Yepes even premiered the instrument! Compare that to the length of time that the (6-string) guitar was around before an actually significant COMPOSER (i.e. someone like Villa-Lobos, or Ohana for that matter) wrote for it, not just petit-maitre guitarist-"composers".

Furthermore, compared with the alto guitar, 10-stringed guitars have a substantial original repertoire. You don't, however, see me sneaking over to the alto guitar page and anonymously pasting it full of bitter, vindictive, petty comments like the one you added to the ten-string guitar page! That is because I have NO ISSUES with alto guitarists! (Sollscher is one of my preferred guitarists!) The polemics I've written have been aimed only at the misinformation of one or two individuals who have unethically used the image, name and fame of Yepes to bolster their own reputation despite the fact that they have been going around misinforming people about Yepes's instrument and his approach to playing it for the past 30 years. This has called for a firm, no-nonsense response. What is needed is the correct information that has for decades been repressed, NOT more misinformation. There has been plenty of that for a long time and the results speak for themselves: the noble and logical instrument Yepes invented has been distorted into a joke. There is reason as to why 6-string guitarists are not interested in it (and it is not always because they are prejudiced): the information disseminated about it has been faulty and the 10-string players since Yepes have been sub-standard compared to the leading 6-string guitarists (or Sollscher, or Galbraith, for that matter). I don't mean, of course, good musicians like Dominic Frasca or Stephan Schmidt, but we NEVER see them (the good 10-stringed guitarists) trying to hawk their methods here. No, the ones that insist on being recognised as "masters" are the ones spreading the misinformation. They and their sycophants.

And finally, if alto guitarists don't make "so much noise about their instrument", it has nothing to do with being humble or arrogant. It is because they have "AN instrument": THE alto-guitar. In contrast, you CANNOT speak of 10-stringed harp-guitars (i.e. with the D-C-B-A-tuning), Narciso Yepes's instrument, or "Marlow Method" within the same sentence as the same instrument. The ONLY similarity is an arbitrary numerical one, nothing more. There is no such thing as "THE ten-string guitar" (with the definite article). There are ten-stringED guitarS, but they are all very different instruments with dissimilar (even contradictory) acoustic properties, dissimilar playing techniques and (to a large extent) incompatible original repertoires. The problem is when people like Janet Marlow ride the coat-tails of Yepes, claiming that their 10-strigned guitars have the same properties as Yepes's, despite the FACT that this claim is untenable as per the laws that govern our existence on this planet, in this universe. Also, contrary to alto-guitars, there is a lot more theory that goes with the Yepes 10-string guitar. This knowledge has been repressed, and it continues to be repressed. That is why "a lot of noise" is called-for. The alto-guitar doesn't require "a lot of noise" about it because it has no comparable theory and no comparable performance practice that goes with it. Guitar and lute performance practices can be used on the alto-guitar; but Yepes's guitar calls for extended techniques, for new knowledge that is NOT widely known and that cannot be inferred from standard guitar or lute technique. Treating Yepes's instrument like a lute or a harp-guitar leads to butchered music with basses at the wrong octaves and/or unwanted dissonances. Furthermore, anyone who wants to call themselves a "master" of the Yepes-type ten-string guitar, at LEAST has to have an understanding of why Yepes specifically put 4 extra strings on his guitar and not 1, or 5, or 7. (But the self-proclaimed "masters" clearly haven't got a clue. What was that, Janet? The four strings add the four resonances? What a joke!) The reason for adding 4 strings has to do with acoustics, with physics, and is inseparable from the correct tuning. But the alto-guitar does not have these issues - it was "invented" (if you can call it an invention) so the guitar could have extra open basses and could be tuned like a lute. Having extra open basses is also a reason why Yepes invented his instrument, but a secondary reason.

If you DON'T care that the instrument has 10 strings tuned a singular way for very logical, practical and acoustic reasons, then WHY ARE YOU PLAYING A TEN-STRING GUITAR? Why not a 7-string guitar? Why not an alto-guitar? Why not a 13-string guitar? It would make a lot more sense - and you would do the music a lot more justice - if you were to play an alto-guitar or 13-stringed guitar rather than playing a 10-string guitar with no understanding of the acoustics of the instrument or of the unique techniques that are required by this instrument. The fact is, Yepes established that foundation; he invented the instrument with an understanding of the acoustics, and he invented a whole repertoire of techniques that are required to play it at a masterful level. That knowledge is there for anyone who is willing to take it on and built on top of it. That foundation is there; it can be built upon; and there are people who do really know and understand it and are more than willing to share it. WHY start from NOTHING, from no foundation, and arrogantly assume that you can build a better foundation than the one a Master already established? THIS is arrogance, and it leads nowhere except defragmentation into smaller and smaller islands, each of which is intent on fostering its own mediocrity rather than recognise any master. It is NOT necessary to make the same mistake that certain individuals have made in arrogantly rejecting their teachers, arrogantly rejecting the knowledge of those who came before us. For WHAT? To what MUSICAL end? So you can hold it up as "freedom of choice", as "lessez-faire"? You also have the freedom of choice to drive your car on oval-shaped wheels, if you want. Feel free.

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 16:03, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Huge answer... I agree with some of the points. I definitely disagree with others. But I won't pursue the issue further. Just note this: I can take a ten-string guitar, and tune it in any way I want. And it's not ignorance! (At least not if I know about the history, and the resonance stuff.) It's still my choice. My freedom of choice. I'll grant others their right. ('cause there's no greater ignorance, than writing things in stone.) 9frontier9 (talk) 18:09, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

9frientier9, If you disagree and have a point to make; make it. By all means.

As for the above, we hardly need you, me or anyone else pointing out in an encyclopaedia that anyone has the Freedom to do whatever s/he wants, including taking a ten-string guitar and stringing it any which way. (We have TOTAL freedom, but not all roads lead somewhere you want to end up.) So shall we also go over to the 6-string guitar page and say that we can string the 6-string with 6 high E-strings because you have the freedom of choice to do so? (Because there happens to exists a single piece by an Israeli composer requiring this "tuning"!) Shall we go to the 'cello and violin pages and say their strings could (theoretically, because we have freedom of choice) be tuned in minor 3rds, or major 2nds, or minor 7ths, or micro-intervals? Do you honestly not see the absurdity of what you are trying to achieve?

There is a standard, and if you want to deviate from it, that's your business. But some of us are concerned with preserving and transmitting knowledge so others can build upon it and make actual progress, rather than misinforming people and promoting an empty "freedom" that leads only to dissolution. You want to build on the foundations established by Yepes, then the only place to go from there is UP. But if you want to be like those who reject their master, start digging your foundations and prepare for the death of artistic growth.

I'm just curious, if you know, please tell us, what is the logic to having that particular number of strings? There is a concrete musical end in it if it's for playing 19th century music on period instruments; there's also a concrete musical end in it (both acoustic and technical/practical) if the strings are set up and tuned correctly as Yepes invented his instrument. But WHAT is the concrete musical end of having ten strings set up and tuned another way? To have resonance? If only I had a penny for every nitwit who has said "my tuning also has the resonance". Well, if that's what you believe, then you inhabit your own alternate reality where the rules of physics work differently, or we are not talking about the same phenomenon. It is an indisputable, hard fact that only the tuning C, Bb, Ab, Gb gives the EIGHT tones (C, G, Bb, F, Ab, Eb, Gb, Db) the same response as E, A, B, and D on the 6-string guitar. If you tune differently, you MUST have MORE THAN TEN strings to lay claim to the characteristic properties of the modern ten-string guitar as invented by Yepes. (Marlow and co. please note: you can stop using the chromatic resonance claim as justification for playing a 10-stringed guitar, because without the standard tuning you're not entitled to it.) What else? You have TEN strings for playing lute music? I'm sorry, but unless you have a 13-stringed guitar you cannot play 13-course baroque lute music on the guitar. That is, not unless you at least have your lowest strings where you can reach them at any moment to fret the notes you don't have as open strings, AND not unless you have a G2b- or F2-string AND an A2b- or G2-string (that's G2 and not G1 as per the absurdly low 10th string of Marlow's setup). This is somewhat simplified, but the point is that you cannot get away with playing baroque lute music in an informed way if you are limited to 10 strings and don't follow the practical solutions that Yepes devised, such as having 7 as the lowest string (not 10).

So why do some people arrogantly reject all foundations, assume they know better, and limit themselves to TEN strings when those ten strings set up and tuned incorrectly DO NOT give chromatic, linearized resonance, and cannot be used to play baroque lute music faithfully? (That is, because the practical solutions for playing music meant for 11- or 13-course instruments have been rejected in favour of absurd and musically ignorant solutions such as putting bass notes all on open strings that randomly happen to be at lower/higher octaves, or simply fretting an individual note at a higher octave when a bass is not available, butchering the structure of the composition and the style/aesthetics of early music.) These folks are really better off selling their 10-strings and acquiring alto- or 13-string guitars tuned as lutes with the correct number of open basses tuned in steps (definitely not fourths! Marlow's DVD with her performance of Weiss proves that you absolutely cannot play baroque lute music correctly with that particular tuning). How can one take a LINE, a PHRASE of A2, G2-sharp, F2-sharp (a descending melodic line in steps) and turn it into A2, G1-sharp, F2-sharp, in other words into an augmented octave!!! down followed by a minor 7th up? These are not movements that one finds in good early music, not if it can be helped, and it is not what Weiss wrote either. He also did not intend for all three bass notes to ring simultaneously: It's a MELODY, a LINE, not a cacophany, not a cluster of dissonance. Yet you find exactly what I describe above in the very first three bars of Marlow's Weiss Courante. Why? Because of FREEDOM of choice. Freedom to to think that there is nothing to learn from a master. Freedom to string the instrument stupidly and to play it without sufficient thought.

If that's the case, WHY ten strings? Why not an alto- or 13-string guitar on which you can simply play open bass strings and get on with it???

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 04:06, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

I think you have amply proven 9frontier9's point. Firstly, it's nonsense to speak of the Yepes guitar having all 6-string repertoire as its repertoire. Oh, it's certainly possible to play classical guitar music on these guitars, just as it's possible to play snare drum solos on a drum kit and piano music on a pipe organ. But they are different instruments, and the full capability of any instrument is only realised when playing music composed or adapted specifically for it.

Ah, but the claim seems to be that any classical guitar music sounds better on the Yepes guitar. This seems to be the very strong opinion of some of its fans. But it's a controversial claim.

And while the article on Yepes says says that this guitar was invented in collaboration with the renowned guitar maker José Ramírez (which is I guess the wrong José Ramírez, but that's another issue... I can't believe we have no article on José Ramírez III), the vast majority of the instruments manufactured by the Ramirez company, and manufactured and played by classical guitar manufacturers and players worldwide, continue to be 6-string guitars.

So the superiority of the Yepes guitar seems to be a minority view, perhaps even a fringe view. It's right for Misplaced Pages to report this minority view, as some very notable musicians have expressed it, most importantly Yepes himself. But Misplaced Pages is not the place to promote it.

I strongly suggest you accept some help to bring this opiniated and generally sub-standard article up to scratch. Its current condition does not help your cause. Andrewa (talk) 09:48, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Andrew, since you live in Australia (as do I) why don't you contact me and make an appointment to meet up and I will happily spend my time informing you about an issue you clearly have no knowledge/understanding of. I will not justify your frankly IGNORANT comments with further detailed response. Go read and inform yourself. If 9frontier9 or you have a "point" (as you call it), MAKE IT. By all means, MAKE IT. Saying something you evidently do not comprehend is "nonsense" does not make it so. No one here says anything about inherent "superiority" of an instrument. (Why are you so threatened by the fact that I finally give people information about an instrument that has always been covered up, lied about, or misrepresented?) Your own challenged and petrified psyche reads this claim of "superiority" where it does not exist. As for the acoustic properties of the Yepes guitar, these are hard, scientific facts (we are talking about physics here), but reading your profile I get the impression you are the type of person who fears science, so there is no convincing you of facts when they are staring you right in the face. As for whether an interpreter can actually USE these acoustic properties to affect a "superior" performance, that depends entirely on the calibre of the artist! But your denial of physical phenomena that have been empirically and mathematically proven true, shows only YOUR "fringe view" to be "nonsense"! As for the article, I will improve it when I have the time, but I certainly do not need "help" from individuals who have NO KNOWLEDGE of the subject!Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

PS. You accuse this article of being "opinionated". To allow people like yourself who are NOT authorities on this topic to express their OPINION on it, now THAT would be an "opinionated" article. What is contained in the article is based on scientific facts, historical facts, primary sources, and is thoroughly researched. You, Andrew Alder, simply have an issue with me because I will not concede that baroque guitars are not correctly referred to a "10-string guitars", and I an CORRECT in this. You can ask anyone who actually has a PhD in musicology or organology (drop on over to the Con and ask) and you will be informed that plucked string instruments with courses are differentiated from one another and correctly referred to by the number of courses. No one talks of 24-string lute, but correctly as 13-course lute. This is a thoroughly established musicological/organological convention and YOU, sir, are the one with the fringe opinion on the matter. You may perceive my tone as a personal attack, but I likewise take your edits as harrassment/vandalism. They are clearly not constructive/informed and the fact that I have incessantly to correct uninformed fringe opinions that are inserted into this and other related articles causes me stress and wastes my time. But I will NOT back down on these matters because I know I am in the right and know what I'm talking about. I am not the type of person who would be this "opinionated" about anything (and I mean ANYTHING) unless I had thoroughly researched it and was absolutely certain of my case. Good day. Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:46, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

And here I go and break my word and waste my time responding to your ill-informed opinion, after all. I shouldn't. But you claim "the full capability of any instrument is only realised when playing music composed or adapted specifically for it". ADAPTED SPECIFICALLY FOR IT...well there you go, you undermine your own argument (if indeed you have one). Even if the Yepes guitar is a different instrument (as you claim absurdly), no longer a guitar, even though in every respect it is still a classical guitar save for having the additional strings 7-10, you yourself still admit music ADAPTED for it. Frankly, there is no "adaptation" required. We are dealing with an instrument with EXPANDED possibilities, not deminished possibilities or even different possibilities. Your analogies are FALSE. When we add an extra octave to a piano or an extra pedal that enables it (at the performer's discretion) to affect expanded interpretative possibilities, this does NOT exclude repertoire written for the piano before that addition. The addition has come about not for nothing, but out of real artistic and musical requirements. Still it is the performer's choice whether to employ the extensions or not, and if they are not required by a particular composition, they are NOT employed. So, sir, do tell us what "point" of 9frontier9 I have "proven". I insist. If you actually have a half-baked argument to make, then lets see you express some actual musical KNOWLEDGE and deliver a half convincing ARGUMENT. Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:59, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I shouldn't even reply to this, but I'll have a go at some of it. I don't think you have answered my argument at all. Whether we call this 10-string guitar a different instrument or not is just words, words, words... Of course it's still a guitar, I hope we can agree on that. And of course you can play 6-string guitar music on it, just as I can sit at my drum kit and play on the snare drum only and often do, it's part of my standard warmup. But you'd be stretching to call it a drum solo if I only played the snare drum - although I've heard good fours played on snare only and John Morrison regularly does an excellent solo on the hi-hat stand only, but that's an exception. Similarly, I doubt that music written for 6-string guitar really does the 10-string justice. I can't see any reason to think it would.

Strongly suggest, again, that you read WP:ATTACK, and also WP:CIVILITY. Andrewa (talk) 12:41, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Likewise, Andrew, I take your edits as little more than a personal vendetta against me. You are wasting my time and causing me stress. But I will NOT back down on these issues. And I will say that I am NOT an opinionated person. I hardly care to express an opinion on anything. But this issue is my life and I am passionate about it and I would NOT express an "opinion" about it unless I knew beyond any doubt that I was expressing facts that I have thoroughly researched and that have been proven beyond a doubt. I'm sorry, I do not have time to attend Misplaced Pages gatherings (this is not my life and I have little interest in wikipedia). What concerns me is knowledge about my area of interest, knowledge that has for decades been under constant attack and threats from individuals who have no researched the topic sufficiently. Yes, I am protective of this knowledge, of preserving it and passing it on. Yes, I will not back down when it is under threat of being destroyed by attacks and opinions. But I have no desire to be involved in what you term "personal attacks". But when I get repeated attacks/vandalism, yes, I dispense with the pleasantries. I would prefer NOT to make this personal, or not to continue down this path, but your incessant attacks (for that is how I perceive them) leave me no alternative. I am NOT trying to convince anyone that the Yepes guitar is inherently superior to the 6-string guitar. I also don't care that you call 6-course guitars 12-string guitars. But I care about preserving knowledge about an instrument I am passionate about, knowledge that has been repressed, attacked, and distorted for decades. Andrew, do you even know the instrument I am defending? Have you ever even heard a high-calibre player of this instrument perform live? HAve you had the opportunity to try a high-end instrument of this type with its correct tuning? Have you made any effort at all to study the articles and interviews I have on my site? Have you made any effort to investigate the validity of the acoustic claims I make (for they are proven facts you can even read about in most good books on acoustics)? Is this REALLY necessary? I don't CARE what you call a 12-string guitar. I don't CARE about including a reference to baroque guitars in case people looking for one accidentaly finds the other (though I highly doubt anyone aside from yourself refers to baroque guitars as 10-string guitars). I care about people understanding the physics behind WHY Yepes wanted additional strings as resonators on his classical guitar. I care about people understanding that Yepes's invention is contingent upon the tuning of the resonators he added. I care about preserving and passing on also the more concrete MUSICAL knowledge and techniques associated with palying the instrument, transcribing for it, etc. I DON"T CARE about these petty arguments about 12-string guitars and baroque guitars. But your attacks are forcing me to perceive you as a threat to the knowledge I seek to preserve. Is this really necessary, Andrew? Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 12:34, 1 January 2009 (UTC) (PS. I cannot be bothered with wikipedia red-tape and beurocracy, so I have sometimes not logged in. I have life beyond wikipedia, a concept I do NOT believe is constructive because it allows non-experts to misinform its readers. I don't have time for this. But I will not back down on issues I know without a doubt that I am an authority on, having dedicated many years of my life to it, having researched it thoroughly, having total conviction that the knowledge I fight for has a very real basis in the science of acoustics and historical facts. Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 12:34, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

PS. Andrew, you still fail to see that the 10-string guitar (with the standard tuning) does 6-string guitar music justice and 6-string guitar music does it justice. You fail to see that the primary reason behind the invention of this guitar is INTERPRETATIVE refinement, which is applicable to any guitar music. You do not have to limit yourself to original 10-string repertoire, or to transcriptions of lute music: ALL of the above AND 6-string and 7-string repertoire does justice to the instrument as the instrument does justice to the music. That is, IF the instrument is used correctly to serve the music. But if factors other than the musical integrity come first, then of course there is nothing inherently superior about the instrument. If the instrument is used stupidly and unmusically, if it is used as a technical crutch, or used as a mere oddity or trick to attract attention (and I would include excessive, unmusical use of all the strings here), then the instrument becomes a farce. As for snare-drums, I DO NOT see any relevance in your analogy to the topic. I recommend you read the articles and resources on my site so you have a more complete picture of the concept of the modern or Yepes-type 10-string guitar. Furthermore, do go over to youtube, view Evelyn Glennie's video on "How to listen to music with your entire body". A true artist like Glennie is perfectly capable of a solo even on a snare-drum, without "stretching it".Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 13:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree Evelyn Glennie is an awesome musician (and probably the only really top percussionist to yet explore nickel-silver cymbals, which were a passion of mine at one stage and are still an interest), and that she could do a good solo on a snare drum... just as JM can and does on a hi-hat stand (and sometimes on the furniture and audience members and whatever else is handy). But that's not the point. These are exceptions. They're not really doing the drumkit justice, and if they were all that EG or JM could do with a drum kit, then you wouldn't call them competent to play it. Andrewa (talk) 13:23, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Civility, personal attack, and content issues

Please see User talk:Viktor van Niekerk#Civility, personal attack, and content issues. Andrewa (talk) 06:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, please see this diff which I guess is Viktor's reply.

So, I'm now raising the matter on Misplaced Pages:Wikiquette alerts as the next step.

Much of what I say below was first posted on Viktor's talk page, hoping for a better response. I had to try. I'll just list the important conduct issues here, we're not going to get anywhere on content until we get some progress on conduct IMO.

Viktor has frequently violated WP:ATTACK, WP:CIVILITY and WP:OWN. Some examples:

• post to User talk:Andrewa ...your denial of physical phenomena that have been empirically and mathematically proven true, shows only YOUR "fringe view" to be "nonsense"! As for the article, I will improve it when I have the time, but I certainly do not need "help" from individuals who have NO KNOWLEDGE of the subject!

This in response to Andrewa's attack on me, referring to the points I make (which are verifiable facts of physics and of history) as "fringe views" and as "nonsense", hence my quotation marks. All this proves is that Andrewa's conduct was an attack on me, a personal vendetta because he cannot concede that a 5-course baroque guitar is not correctly referred to as a 10-string guitar according to well-established organological/musicological conventions.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• post to User talk:Andrewa ...You are evidently not a musicologist/organologist/semiologist/semantician so I don't see what you think you will achieve by being bothersome about this issue... (the charge that I'm ...not... is actually false as well as being irrelevant...)

Then please supply your musical credentials and reference an actual musicological journal article that challenges the convention of differentiating instruments from one another by their number of courses rather than their number of strings when those strings in fact form courses).Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• reply to User talk:Archeoix Rubbish! Come on, let's be honest, please. Surely I don't have to teach you your scales?

In response to an attack on the 10-string guitar that claimed ludicrously that guitar music is only written in what the user absurdly titled "appropriate keys" such as E-major and that therefore resonance for the notes other than E, A, B and D, is "inappropriate". This was nothing other than an attack on the concept of the 10-string guitar. Moreover, its aims is to establish the the term "appropriate" resonance in the discourse, which is NOT innocent for it brings with it its invidious antonym, "inappropriate" resonance, as if having resonance for F#, G#, C# or D# (all notes in the scale of E-major) would be "inappropriate". It is ludicrous and moreover it is an invidious attack on a concept and on the persons associated with it. As such I did not, and again would not tolerate it.

• post to User talk:58.161.124.131 Please refrain from advertising your product (the B.C. Rich so-called 10-string guitar) here... falsely accusing the contributor of WP:COI.

Whatever the user's involvement, it is still a case of a product being advertised, not an historically significant development. In addition, it was not a 10-string guitar because the strings form courses (pairs that function as a single string). Regardless of what the B.C. Rich company calls this instrument, it is, from a musicological/organological point of view, not a 10-string guitar (not a 10-course guitar), but a 6-course guitar in which four courses are double and two single. It does not have ten individually fretted and sounded strings, so it is not a 10-string guitar.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• post to User talk:9frontier9 Your Ignorant Prejudice against the 10-string guitar...

In response to unequivocal attacks this user made against the 10-string guitar and (by extension) those persons associated with it: comments (attacks) which were not constructive and not stemming from knowledge about the actual practical use of the instrument or of the true extent of its repertoire.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• Post to Janet Marlow's user page Your coattail-riding of the name, image and reputation of Narciso Yepes - of whose actual work ethic, performance practice and concept of the 10-string guitar there is not a trace to be found...

Well, is the name and image of Narciso Yepes not used a lot on www.tenstringguitar.com? Yes. Yet, does that site, in fact, promote understanding of Yepes's instrument or his method of playing it? No, because it is riddled with factual errors and false statements. Refer to www.myspace.com/tenstringuitar for a discussion of the misinformation presented on that site.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Marlow's user page is admittedly a vanity page. Hey, she's a newbie, or was. She set up her user page, and made one edit to the 10-string guitar article, adding her own website as a reference. Viktor immediately reverted the edit, with little explanation, and added insulting remarks to her talk page, and she hasn't been back. And there's something about sock puppetry concerning Archeoix which may well be valid. But none of that is an excuse for incivility.

Andrew, Archeoix was confirmed to have had multiple sock-puppet identities (about a dozen), many of which s/he used to attack me, Narciso Yepes, and the concept of the 10-string guitar. As for Marlow, Andrewa, you are being dishonest and misrepresenting the facts. Marlow did not make an edit to the article, as you claim, citing her own site as source for added/altered information. What she IN TRUTH did was simply to add her own site as a source of reference for the information already contained in the article. Now, most of that information I personally put there and I derived it exclusively from articles and other texts by and interviews with Yepes, as well as from books on acoustics, among other verifiable sources. Marlow's site has NEVER served as a source of reference in the writing of this article. In fact, the contrary is true, because many phrases on Marlow's site have been copied directly from texts I wrote, not to mention the repertoire list on Marlow's site, which is entirely my own research. Furthermore, not only did Marlow's site not serve as the source for this article and not only was she being less than honest in attempting to make it look that way, but Marlow's site also cannot serve as a reliable reference because it is riddled with factual errors which I have elsewhere proven to be deliberate misrepresentations. Before you cry wolf and call this a personal attack, you may wish to refer to my site (www.myspace.com/tenstringguitar) where I step-by-step, in Marlow's own published words, show how she cites texts by Yepes only to change Yepes's words and key points in order to obscure certain truths about his invention, while promoting her own scientifically untenable ideas about stringing and tuning a 10-stringed guitar. Thus, I removed Marlow's reference to her own site because it was not in truth a reference source for the article, nor can it serve as a reliable reference so long as Marlow maintains certain falsities on that site and the publications it promotes. These include (but are not limited to) her claims that Narciso Yepes heard that the 6-string guitar lacked FOUR resonances and that adding four strings add these FOUR resonances; referring to the interval between the 7th and 8th string as a "whole step" when it is a minor 7th; and claiming that her own tuning possesses the same acoustic properties as the first defining characteristic and raison d'etre of the Yepes 10-string. These points are unequivocally false and untenable. That is not my opinion, nor is it a personal attack; it is simply a fact as per the laws of physics.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

The article needs a great deal of work. Part of it is removing Viktor's POV and bias, and I can't see any way to get other editors involved in it if they need to put up with the abuse that Viktor currently heaps on anyone who disagrees with him.

The article can stand stylistic improvement. But not the inclusion of misinformation. Some of the neutrality issues exist ONLY because individuals like yourself, Andrewa, have insisted on including irrelevant and misleading/confusing sections to the article that more accurately belong under harp guitar and under baroque guitar respectively. We can do away with these neutrality issues if we can agreee simply to include hat-notes to harp guitar and baroque guitar. But if you insist on including these here, then we must necessarily differentiate these from the Yepes instrument, which does not merely have ten strings, but has (as it's primary reason for being) certain acoustic characteristics that are contingent upon its standard tuning. These characteristics (as a fact of physics) are not only unachievable by other "tunings" that falsely lay claim to the same (Marlow's, for example), but are (again as a fact of physics and as per Yepes's discussion of the viola d'amour) exactly contrary to the instrument Yepes invented. These are not neutrality issues or personal attacks, but facts of the science of acoustics.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Another place I thought of raising this is Misplaced Pages:Third opinion, for comments on content, but that page is specifically intended for disputes that have remained civil.

And we may end up at Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment, but I'd like to have at least one other editor raise the issues on Viktor's talk page before going there (and it's required for conduct RfCs, but not strictly required for content RfCs). And obviously, this is not one for the fainthearted!

Suggestions, anyone? Andrewa (talk) 10:13, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I suggest you refer to my texts as well as the numerous journal articles in PDF that I have posted on my site at www.myspace.com/tenstringguitar and first acquaint yourself with the full extent of this topic. You may win this one on "democracy" and numbers, but it will be a case of the bullies in the majority ganging up to cover the truth. It will not, however, change the laws of physics, or the correct, verifiable statements of Narciso Yepes, or the deliberately false statements made by folks like Marlow. I will continue to fight for the truth and, ultimately, I am in the position to publish scholarly work in journals and books which are respectable academic resources (as opposed to the internet).Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

My comments in bold.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 11:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. Hopefully, others will now have a look at them. Andrewa (talk) 14:28, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I should also have said above, user:129.94.133.166 is also Viktor. I've asked him about this and it's just that he doesn't always log on, as is his right but it's something to bear in mind when looking at article histories. This seems to be the only IP he uses, and he seems to be the only user of it. Andrewa (talk) 21:40, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Content issues

I don't propose to pursue these particularly strongly until/unless we get the conduct thing sorted out. But here's a little blueprint of what I think we need:

1. Article structure and balance: It should be primarily and equally about four instruments (probably in this order, which is chronological):

• Ten-string harp guitars (particularly 19th century ones).
• Ten-string pedal steel guitars (there are probably more of these in existence than all of the other varieties of ten-string put together, as in E9 tuning it's the standard student pedal steel instrument).
• Ten-string classical guitar, as developed by Narciso Yepes.
• Ten-string electric guitar, as produced by B.C.Rich and possibly others. There are at least three models currently in production and several notable players.

The short section on baroque guitar should also stay, as baroque guitars have nine or ten strings and while they are rarely referred to as 10-string guitars this is where many people will look for information on them, if for example they have seen one played or in a photograph and don't know what it is. Even if the instrument were the 9-string variety, many laymen would miss the fact that there's only a single bass string, and describe it as a 10-string guitar.

Finally, there should be a brief mention of the Brazilian viola, another guitar with ten strings that is however rarely if ever called a ten-string guitar.

In Short: NO. The additional instruments you mention are all COURSED and not single strung. Thus, simply, they are not 10-string guitars. There is a musicological convention that must be followed here. You are mistaken.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 12:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll double-indent my replies to your bolded text, to try to make the strings as abvious as possible... suggest you might use indenting as well, rather than bolding. Just a suggestion.

No, the instruments are not all coursed... the pedal steel has only single strings. And this musicological convention to which you appeal is neither relevant nor consistently applied, as for example with the twelve-string guitar, as previously discussed at length.

2. Ten-string classical guitar: Refactor the two sections The modern "Ten-String Guitar" by Yepes/Ramirez and Comparison of Ten-stringed Guitars into one section on the classical ("modern"?) ten-string guitar.

This is the hard part. But a sample from the current article:

...since 1963 ten-string guitars that seem to be modern in appearance have been appropriated by some proponents of the abovementioned Romantic ten-stringed guitar, tuning the additional strings diatonically from D to AI (a system also known by the misnomer "Baroque" tuning). This has led to some confusion between two visually similar but conceptually disparate instruments...

Confusion? Not surprising: This is actually describing two identical instruments, the only difference between them is tuning (and possibly string gauge, bridge compensation etc to support the tuning of course). The thing is, Yepes was passionate about one particular tuning, and so are his followers.

You, Andrewa, are confused. These are two separate instruments with incompatible repertoires and not only different acoustic properties, but CONTRARY acoustic properties. Please look beyond the arbitrary numerological similarity and see the concrete acoustic facts: Yepes invented his guitar with a primary purpose, an acoustic characteristic that is contingent upon its standard tuning. In a 1978 interview with Snitzler (on my site) he clearly distances his instrument from the viola d'amour which augments imbalance of resonance rather than linearizing resonance response over the 12 notes. As a fact of acoustics, the Romantic "tuning" does what the viola d'amour does, acoustically. It is exactly contrary to the concept of the Yepes guitar despite the irrelevant, arbitrary numerical similarity of the strings. In addition, the Romantic "tuning" belongs to another instrument, a harp guitar, while Yepes's instrument is not, in fact, a harp-guitar. The reason why the modern instrument has been appropriated for this tuning by some has to do with misinformation propagated that led people to believe that Yepes used a so-called "baroque tuning" when he palyed baroque lute music. This is false. The first trace of this misconception I have been able to find in my extensive research is a 1980 article by Janet Marlow in which she introduces the misnomer "baroque" tuning, for the tuning of the Romantic 10-stringed harp-guitar by Scherzer.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 12:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Nearly all of the facts as you present them here are as far as I know accurate, but not all of them, and the conclusions do not follow. The use of a different tuning or string gauge on a guitar is not elsewhere regarded as making it a different instrument, any more than it is on a banjo where different tunings are even more common, with 5-string players even retuning between songs. Rather, use of a different tuning such as open G tuning is normally just seen as a particular technique for playing the instrument. Or, a twelve string guitar is still a twelve string guitar whether strung for unison G or octave G, and whether conventional or Rickenbacker 360/12 stringing.

In the first place, you have to be honest and consistent about what you are talking about. You cannot talk about scordatura (re-tuning) one moment and the next equate this with stringing an instrument in a non-standard way. The latter is what I am arguing against and this is not "tuning" or scordatura. Secondly, the primary reason why Yepes invented his instrument and why it has 10 strings has to do with particular acoustic characteristics. These are the defining feature of his instrument. Also, they are (as a fact of science) contingent upon the tuning of the 4 additional strings. Any other tuning/stringing with the same number of strings will not (as a fact of acoustics) result in the same acoustic characteristics, i.e. having lineraized transferral of vibrations from plucked strings to resonator strings, in unison with the plucked string, for any note of the chromatic scale from the lowest to the highest note of the treble strings. Yepes furthermore, in a 1978 interview with Snitzler, states that his instrument is the exact opposite of an instrument like the viola d'amour, which has resonator strings, but which augments an imbalance of resonance rather than linearizing/balancing the resonance. Since other "tunings" of 10-stringed guitars result in certain resonances being augmented while there is no resonance for other notes of the chromatic scale (this is a fact as per the laws of physics), they are contrary to the invention of Narciso Yepes in terms of its primary reason for being and its primary characteristic. Arguments could also be made for the fact that the repertoire written for the Yepes instrument is totally unplayable on the Marlow instrument or the Romantic 10-stringed guitar. These latter cannot be "retuned" to standard tuning and cannot be used to execute, say, the music of Maurice Ohana or Bruno Maderna. As such, if these instruments have not compatible original repertoire, they are not the same instrument. An arbitrary numerical similarity in the number of strings do not the same instrument make.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 03:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

But in Misplaced Pages, these various tunings should all be described, and notable users of them cited. At present, instead we have a thinly disguised and rather messy essay promoting one particular tuning, admittedly probably the most important one, but one of several currently used by players of this instrument. And that's the most important content problem with the article.

Enough for now. Andrewa (talk) 11:05, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

No, they should not all be described. In fact, the neutrality problems are a result of including a discussion of instruments here that necessarily need to be differentiated from one another because they are NOT all the same, even if they look the same and have the same number of strings. The logical conclusion of Andrewa's lax attitude towards including anything is that we will end up with a Library of Babel (as per the famous story by Jorge Luis Borges) in which wikipedia contains every possible opinion and idea and every meta-opinion and meta-idea ad infinitum, ad nauseam: 99% nonsense. No, this is not constructive and it is not informing anyone, and it is not as if these concepts need advertising because they already get prime spots in google search results. What you suggest, Andrewa, is simply a case of raising opinions, misunderstandings and falsified information up alongside hard facts. Doing what you suggests is the equivalent of going to every other instrument's page and listing every deviation from the violin's standard tuning, or the cello's or the piano's. Shall we also go the 6-string guitar page and list the tuning of E4-E4-E4-E4-E4-E4 ? Why not? This is also a "tuning" used on the guitar for which music has been written. (Seriously.) Finally, you will have to seriously lower the standards by which you define "notable" if you want to do what you suggest above. There is hardly a Notable 10-string guitarist active today (by which I mean a recording and concert artist with an international career) for whom notable composers write music, who performs regularly with notable orchestras and in notable concert venues. Unless we consider someone like Jonathan Leathwood or Stephan Schmidt (who both use the standard tuning, despite Schmidt's deviance from it for the Bach recording - and we do have a link to that already).Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 12:04, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

We are only interested in notable tunings, I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear above but I thought I had. I admit I didn't know music had been written for that E4 etc tuning... who is it by, is it notable? I'd have said that it was a hypothetical tuning and not of any interest at all, but you may have better information on this.

The only notable "tuning" would be the standard tuning. Why? First of all, no other "tuning" is associated with a performer of the same historical significance as Yepes. When we have one performing with the world's leading orchestras, in the concert halls of all the continents, receiving compositions from the leading living composers, then you have a case for historical significance, or notability. As it stands, the only two notable 10-stringed guitars are included already, the Yepes type (which has a standard tuning), and the Romantic 10-stringed harp-guitar (whose standard tuning is D2, C2, B1, A1). Scordatura can be used on both of these, but if they are re-strung with a different string configuration that makes returning to the standard tuning impossible, and makes palying the original repertoire impossible, they are no longer the same instruments.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 03:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

If you can make a case that no other tuning for the Yepes instrument is encyclopedic, then go ahead. But you haven't made any attempt at this yet. You have accused Janet Marlow and others of misinformation, but that seems to be simply your opinion, and you haven't even said what she has got wrong, other than that she favours tunings that you dislike so intensely. That's not misinformation.

There are many examples, of this misinformation, too many to list here. I will stick to a couple of examples: In the front matter of Marlow's book "The Ten-String Guitar: An Approach Guide" she falsely claims that "NARCISO YEPES heard that there were FOUR tones with less sustain due to missing sympathetic resonance on the six-string guitar" . In truth, there are EIGHT notes (from the twelve that make the chromatic octave) that do not have string resonance (i.e. a sympathetic response in unison from an adjacent string). Now, first thing to consider is that Yepes nearly always (in nearly every speech, interview, article) mentions the EIGHT missing resonances that his four strings add. Furthermore the science of acoustics is on Yepes's side: a string resonates strongly (audibly) when its octave or 12th (the compound 5th) and their octaves are are played on adjacent strings. Now, we have to consider that Marlow, in a 1980 article in Soundboard journal cites a 1978 interview with Yepes as the source of her information. She has put it in writing that she has read this interview and the discussion of Yepes's instrument is reliable because it comes from an interview with Yepes. In the interview, as per usual, Yepes refers to EIGHT resonances added by the four additional strings. So there is no explanation other than deliberate misinformation for Marlow making the claims that "NARCISO YEPES heard that there were FOUR tones with less sustain due to missing sympathetic resonance on the six-string guitar" (her book) and "there are four missing sympathetic resonances on the six string guitar" (www.tenstringguitar.com/tuningsforthe10string.html). Because she has read Yepes saying eight, she has cited a text in which Yepes says eight, and yet she misrepresents his words and the logic behind his invention by distorting the facts. Aslo on www.tenstringguitar.com/tuningsforthe10string.html , the intervals between the additional strigns are referred to as "descending whole steps". Well, the interval between C2 and B2 is not a whole step down but a minor 7th up. Considering how often this innacuracy has led to people assuming that the bass strings of Yepes's last three strings are an octave lower than they actually are, this is a care-less mistake that should not be made. Allan Kozinn (writing in the New York Times) misrepresents the octaves/tuning of Yepes's instrument thus. Nestor Benito, a 10-string guitarist, misrepresents Yepes's tuning thus here in a text that (I might add) is basically drawn from Janet Marlow's 1980 article with the same examples: www.nestorbenito.com.ar/the_ten_string_guitarTT.htm (notice the three last basses are an octave lower than Yepes actually had them - and this makes a big difference in terms of both resonance and having basses at the correct octave for lute music). The newest Narciso Yepes record compilation by Deutsche Grammophon even propagates misinformation in its booklet which gives all manner of wrong tunings in the various mistranslations of the text, including the above mistake. And this is just the tip of the ice-berg, so how are we to make informed decisions about this instrument when it is constantly being misrepresented? And when I make an effort to enforce the correct facts, I naturally encounter opposition from the masses because the information they are drawing from is faulty and ubiquitous. But the sources of my information are reliable primary sources. So you can continue your vendetta against me, Andrewa, but the truth will prevail.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 03:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

The article currently already describes one of these variant tunings, rather disparagingly, see above. This alternative tuning should either be properly described or not described at all. My feeling is that it should be described, and the force with which you argue that it shouldn't be frankly supports this. It's obviously been a big talking point among Yepes' followers.

My feeling is that it should not be described at all because that is the only way of maintaining neutrality. The neutrality issues arrise only because individuals insist on describing non-standard "tunings" (which are not simply tunings but non-standard string configurations and tunings). If they are to be included, they must necessarily be shown to be dissimilar to the defining characteristics of the instrument Yepes invented. That is because the acoustic characteristics are the primary concern here, not merely an arbitrary similarity in the number of strings.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 03:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

As I said, I'm not pursuing these changes for the moment. I just wanted to foreshadow what I had in mind, assuming we can come to some arrangement where they won't just be reverted. Andrewa (talk) 13:42, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

For Andrewa

1) "12-string" is vernacular, embedded in our business from the catalogues of the original manufacturers (the last people interested in logic or organology) and later "folk" nomenclature (never scholarly nomenclature).

2) Any instrument with at least one non-single string should use "course" for clarity by any serious musicologist.

3) Intruments with 10 single strings should be termed "10-stringed guitars" rather than "the 10-string guitar" because there is no one 10-string guitar (with the definitive article).

4) I suggest you start a new article and title it '10-stringed guitars' under which you differentiate the various types under sub-headings accordign to their number of courses. The baroque guitar would fall under 5-course, the B.C. Rich instrument would fall under 6-course.

5) I suggest a non-guitarist baroque lutenist should mediate this and offer an opinion on the established musicological use of the terms course and string.

6) We must recognise that "12-string guitar" is an exception to and deviation from a well-established musicological/organological convention, and not the rule according to which we should re-write the terminology. We should also recognise that the term 12-string guitar enters not via musicologists or scholars but via guitar manufacturers and was later taken up mainly by folk musicians. In contrast there is an extensive scholarly history of referring to instruments with at least one PAIR of strings as coursed, not (single) strung/stringed. Now, I am not suggesting re-naming "12-string guitars", but it is a mistake (and folly) to try to oppose centuries-old scholarly conventions and to take the exception as the rule and re-write the terminology of organology. Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 03:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)