A reel on my new Herb Taylor tenor guitar!

[Jill McAuley]

Here's a great Finbarr Dwyer reel played on the new Herb Taylor tenor guitar. Herb strung it up with flat wound strings but I haven't decided if they're quite my cup of tea or not yet, may swap them out.

[Nate Banton]

Fantastic Jill. A Herb taylor tenor guitar is at the top of my list of first custom build orders. Unfortunately, no idea when I could afford it... Tell us all about it!

[Jill McAuley]

Cheers Nate! Herb is awesome to work with - I still can't believe this wee tenor guitar is mine finally! I started thinking about getting another tenor back in about May/June this year as I've never forgiven meself for having to sell my Fletcher TenorTone several years back. I thought about just getting a nice old Martin tenor but was put off by the scale length - most of the ones I was coming across had 23 inch scale lengths. I looked into getting another TenorTone but when I came across a thread here on Herb Taylor tenors that was me hooked. When I contacted Herb to ask about getting onto his Autumn build list he mentioned that he had sapele back and sides already for a cutaway build that someone didn't move forward with. He had a piece of light colored cedar he was going to use for the top.

Initially, due to finances (because this was really pushing the boat out for me) I was going to go for a really spartan build - top binding only, no purfling, but work-wise I've had a really busy summer/early fall so as the build was commencing decided to go for back binding as well and herringbone purfling. It has a side port too. Scale length is 21 inches with a nut width of 1 1/4 inches, tuned GDAE. Herb thought he'd finish it around the end of the year, but work progressed faster than anticipated and it arrived two weeks ago! The price included a hardshell case and shipping. I'm absolutely delighted with it. Currently it's strung with flat wound strings, which I've never really used before. I may eventually swap them out but will play it in some more before deciding - not because I particularly dislike the sound or anything, more just because I kind of like the "raspy-ness" of round wound strings.

[WillFly]

Great playing - and what a sweet sounding instrument.

It'll be interesting to see how the face ages and matures.

[Bertram Henze]

If this is the sound with flatwounds, it must be a true killer with roundwounds (I'm partial to roundwound strings, but you have guessed that ) - for a true comparison, you should put roundwounds on, at least once.

[bruce.b]

Great playing, Jill. Herb is a great builder. I’m in Portland, Oregon looking for a place to live, and my tenor guitar is at my brother’s house in Maryland. I really miss not playing it. I’d love to play and compare his flat tops and his archtops, but if I did that I’d probably have to get one of each.

[fox]

Hey Jill, how is the guitar performing for you?

[Jill McAuley]

Hey Jill, how is the guitar performing for you?

I ended up selling it last year - needed to get $$ for my Girouard mandolin. One other factor was that I'm planning on moving back to Ireland in the not too distant future and was concerned about getting the Herb Taylor tenor over there in one piece - the case it came with was fine for around town but not something I would fly with and the guitar itself was very lightly built. The other option was to try to get a custom made Calton for it but in the end I opted to sell. I'll get a tenor guitar again in the future, but it might be wiser for me to wait til I get back home and commission a build on that side of the pond.

[fox]

Oh that is a shame, I enjoyed your video!