New Heartwood SMT-10 Tenor Guitar

[Shawn Collins]

A friend invited me to watch Chris Leslie perform in Derby last fall. Chris played and sang on several instruments; including a cool 4-stringed one that I'd never seen before. That was my introduction to the tenor guitar. Several months later after doing some digging and dropping in at Scales Music shop in Edinburgh during our school holiday trip, I purchased a Heartwood tenor guitar from the Music Room in Cleckheaton. There's not much out there from Heartwood owners, but there's a decently solid theme about the folks at the Music Room being trustworthy. I certainly found them to be helpful and courteous. For a list price of £299 and actual price of £199, it fits the "amateur impulse buy" range.

The guitar is all solid wood, made of mahogany. The construction seems to be solid, if basic. I've tuned it G-D-A-E since I'm coming at it from playing mandolin. So far I've only played it at home. It's got more projection than either of my Fyldes (mando and OM) - something that would be useful in the Derby sessions I intermittently attend which are dominated by fiddles. It also seems to work better for chords, although that may say more about my limited rhythm ability than the actual instruments being compared. Overall I think it's a fun addition to the musical instrument souvenirs I'll take back to the US with me later this summer.

Here are some photos.


And a video clip of Swallowtail Jig