Just bought a Harmony archtop tenor

[JPL]

Not normally an impulsive guy, but there it was on the auction site, and I bid, and I won.

There's talk among some of my local buddies about starting up a bluegrass group . . . I have a notion to play the tenor on some tunes instead of mandolin, hopefully bringing out a nice solid chop on the 2 and 4.

I'm not much of a picker, but my other notion is to tune GDAE and try to learn some fiddle tunes out of first position.

[allenhopkins]

I'm not much of a picker, but my other notion is to tune GDAE and try to learn some fiddle tunes out of first position.

You've set quite a goal for yourself there. The t-guitar scale's a good deal longer than mandolin, so fingering fiddle tunes is quite a bit more work. You have to un-anchor your fretting hand, use your pinky more, and figure out how to get up to that sixth fret cleanly and quickly. I can play fiddle tunes on similarly-scaled instruments like my Octofone, but have a hard time getting up to normal fiddle-tune speed.

[JPL]

Had an unexpected family expense and had to back out of the purchase. Oh well . . . just bought a mandola a few months back, and it's not like I've mastered that so much that I need a new challenge . . .

[Charles E.]

The next time you have a chance to purchase an arch top tenor, think swing tunes, Bob Wills, Milton Brown,Louis Jordan, It is alot of fun.

[catmandu2]

Charley's got that right :)