PAUL
VERNON CHESTER
Manouche Maestro
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Manouche Maestro |
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Geoffrey Sisley - Guitarist The name of Geoffrey Sisley must be known to all players of the guitar. Composer, recording artist, arranger, teacher, broadcaster, there is hardly any corner of the fretted instrument field in which he does not excel. Geoff Sisley, wrote a three-part profile of Django in BMG (April/May/June 1936) Pioneer guitarist Geoff Sisley, I met him in Jennings Musical industries Charing Cross Rd. London around 1961/2 where I bought my first Fender Strat. The owner was accordionist Larry McCary and he called Geoff up from the basement to hear me play in the shop. I recall him saying "you should approach someone influential in the business "......also get involved in "trends"...the current one being James Bond! I decided to leave that to Sean..... from Ade Holland “images & text courtesy www.harpguitars.net”
The author (not credited, perhaps editor A .P. Sharpe), seems to understand that, at the time, the majority of his readers had little first-hand knowledge of the instrument, as he explains as if to a child that "there are no frets on the bass neck!" While there are a multitude of common and regional tunings for the various stringing arrangements of contra-guitars, Sisley offers only the option of starting with Eb and descending chromatically (as far as the number of strings allow). More useful is his disclosure of his muting technique - stopping each sub-bass with his thumb knuckle. One wonders if this may be the traditional technique, since constant controlled damping is obviously necessary on these chromatic instruments.
Sisley owned, and the author describes, the two main forms of contra-guitar. The instrument in our cover picture is a contra-guitar - a member of the guitar family on which Mr. Sisley has specialized during the past few years and readers may be interested in learning something of this traditional instrument. It has a wider body than the usual concert guitar but is generally shallower in depth; this last feature being a compensating factor regarding cubic capacity of the body, i.e. a wider soundboard for resonance but a shallow body to assist in the brilliant reproduction of the higher notes.
The contra-guitar has two necks: one is a replica of
the normal concert guitar, the other carries the added bass strings, which run
down in chromatic scale order from low E string of the standard neck.
Contra-guitars are broadly of two kinds. Firstly we have the
traditional and authentic Viennese contra-guitar, 13 to 15 strings in all, with
push-in pegs and a metal rod running inside the guitar body from the heel to the
extreme base of the instrument. This classical and national instrument of
It is the usual thing in The other type of contra-guitar is the German type which, although still a double-necked instrument of broadly similar appearance as the Viennese instrument, differs in constructional details. The body of the instrument is more like the ordinary six-string concert guitar - but larger, of course. It is usually fitted with machine heads and may have 13, 15 or even 18 strings: the latter having a complete chromatic scale of twelve strings on the bass neck.
There is, however, some conjecture as to the
maintenance of tonal quality and volume of so large an instrument as compared
with the 15 or 13 strings variety. Many people have asked Mr. Sisley how
the contra-bass guitar is played, particularly in respect of the bass strings.
He tells us that they are not fingered by the left hand (indeed, there are no
frets on the bass neck!) as they are in chromatic order. These basses are
therefore tuned thus:- The playing of the basses are required to be controlled as regards their duration of sound and as the contra-guitar is so extensively used for accompaniment, let us deal with this aspect of the instrument. The bass strings are damped (after they have sounded for the desired length of sound) by touching the string with the lowest knuckle joint of the right-hand thumb. It should, perhaps, be emphasized that the clarity of the note is not thus impaired as in the plectrum guitar effect of actually damping the initial note with the outer edge of the right-hand palm. With the contra-guitar, the sound (though short) is clear. Another advantage the contra-guitar enjoys is that playing in the usually-avoided flat keys is facilitated by the fact that comparatively simple chord formations can be employed on the treble neck as the player has, in most cases, the fundamental and alternative basses already on the bass neck. That is the normally problematical keys of Bb, Eb, Ab Db, Gb and Cb [?] present no real problems to the player of the contra-guitar. Or “images & text courtesy www.Harpguitars.net ” First Step Album
The album cover shows Ronnie Wood reading a copy of
seminal guitar tutor "First Step" by Geoffrey Sisley. 'First Step' How to play the G Banjo, 4 string plectrum style and 5 string finger style, Banjo/Ukulele/Mandolin The Classic Guitar - Arr Geoffrey Sisley Geoffrey Sisley, The Romantic Guitar |
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