What unboxing a twelve-string has taught me about learning and transformation

I have a book habit that I'm not proud of--reading perhaps 10% of what I have stacked-up--embarrassing. But very occasionally I treat myself to something nice which I did two weeks ago. And here it is, a twelve-string, a real beauty:

It was built by the late luthier Chris Eccleshall in 2008, and like Jimi's Tony Zemaitis creation from the cover pic played in this famous video, it is an arch top rather than a pegged bridge (i.e. strings go all the way to the back and top is domed). Leadbelly style, this is sometime called, after the instrument's most famous exponent, though this archive footage shows him playing some beaten-up twelve string with bridge pins:

The correct smile to adopt when you are being handsy-serenaded by a folk legend and killer

Unusually mine is flared/sprung both top and bottom--like my bowl-back mandolin--more apparent on the top. This design appealed since string tension tends to fold guitars in half over time, where the neck meets the body, and neck resets are very expensive. I already have a couple of instruments like this so didn't want to take a risk (twelve strings=more tension) and this design, as you can see, gives a lot of scope for lowering the action (distance between strings and fingerboard) as the instrument ages/folds:

I have noodled around a variety of instruments from a young age, own a small and neglected menagerie of them, and have been playing the guitar on and off for about thirty-five years. Mostly I have played on my beaten-up nylon flamenco, and more recently a steel six-string.

Already the twelve-string has mixed my playing experience up in a variety of interesting ways that seem to adhere to Aristotle's statement in his Poetics about good endings being a duality; same but different, surprising but inevitable:

Inevitable/Same

• My Eccleshall twelve-string is a guitar, similar size and materials to my others. It has a headstock with tuning-heads, neck, nut, body, bridge, sound-hole
• Strings are arranged in sixes (though see below). The two string courses are similar to my mandolin
• It can be tuned the same so the notes are in familiar places (although note: it works particularly well in open, i.e. tuned to a chord, tunings) so the songs and sounds I know from the six-string translate

Surprising/Different

• As mentioned the Eccleshall has a sprung top and a metal tail-piece
• All my other instruments are fairly beaten-up and vintage-- my six-string is 1971 and my mandolin and piano from the 1800's. They have various ailments and eccentricities as a result. For example my piano sounds great after heavy rain and dead after a centrally-heated dry winter. This twelve-string, while 13-years old, is almost pristine, looks great. And it smells different--I think it's the glue
• It's a higher quality instrument than many of my others and more valuable too--craftsman made--though vintage guitars of similar quality tend to sound better (some subjectivity here but something to do with resins crystallising). And it's by a known maker with a great reputation
• I've never held one before much less played or owned one
• It has a piezo electric pickup under the bridge--you can plug it in and as I have an amp it extends what I can do with it
• The strings are arranged in six courses of two. The bottom four strings have a thinner string traditionally tuned an octave higher and the top two strings are in unison like a mandolin (practical--if they were an octave higher they'd be so thin they'd snap). This arrangement gives the instrument a jangly-bell-like quality (this one sounds a bit like a piano, particularly in the lower register) and has what is described as a "make a cup of tea and come back and it will still be ringing" sustain. As a result, when notes are played they demand to be listened to
• It is more tank-like and robust--I can flex the neck of my six-string to do dive-bomb effects but the twelve neck is wide and feels reinforced inside--it's stiff not bendy
• Tuning it (and particularly changing the strings) is a bit of a drag--hence the joke: "twelve string players spend half their time tuning and the other half playing out-of-tune"
• It was made in the UK as opposed to my flamenco (Spain), six-string (Japan), mandolin (USA) and double bass and piano (Germany)

?The game's afoot:

Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

Week one: the subjective experience of unboxing and playing

Initially I was intimidated getting it out of the shipping box--and guitars are shipped with string tension slackened-off which protects the instrument but changes the wood. It took a couple of days at full tension to not sound weedy and I ended up putting on a thicker string set which further improved things. I was immediately struck by the wide neck and string courses which felt awkward under my fingers. Though I welcomed the relief as I had been playing a lot of six-string and had divots and some pain in the fingertips of my left hand. Within a few days of twelve string playing this pain subsided, replaced by some new pains at the base of my left-hand thumb (a week on this has cleared up).

This intimidation was also reinforced by the value and pristine nature of the instrument. Things get bashed and this just looked too perfect. I was also concerned about buying a sight unseen lemon (there is an old adage that beaten-up instruments are players' instruments and therefore sound better as well as having "mojo", "hoodoo" and other properties, while those left in the case are pristine for a reason). Fortunately this did not turn out to be the case.

As you can see from the Leadbelly archive still, many guitarists play worn-in or even beaten-up instruments--indeed Gibson and Fender custom shops will even bash new guitars up for you at a cost to recreate that played-in look. Players famous for playing beaten-up old comfy slippers of instruments include:

• Tommy Emmanuel -- who famously takes sandpaper to his to improve playability and allow for rhythm effects.
• Rory Gallagher -- who coincidentally got Chris Eccleshall to make him an electric mandolin as well as maintain his trusty beaten-up Strat.
• And probably most famous of all, Willy Nelson and Trigger:

Part of the appeal of the road-worn and beaten-up is that as well as having more character and comfort, the instrument is seen as a tool rather than something precious and reverent, and perhaps an extension of the player's own body. Possibly why Pete Townsend from the Who never played a Stradivarius.

This was my motivation when I changed to heavier strings and looped the excess around the top like Jimi's, rather than cutting them off flush, to muss it up a bit. I do this with all my guitars and mandolin--it's a tradition that calls to mind my past (I used to have corkscrew curls) as well as Danny's famous soliloquy from one of my favourite films, Withnail and I:

"I don't advise a haircut, man. All hairdressers are in the employment of the government. Hair are your aerials; they pick up signals from the cosmos and transmit them directly into the brain."

Week two: some fluency at playing it

According to the bad acid trip that is the Book of Revelations, the sound track to the apocalypse predominantly features trumpets (seven of them).

What seems to have been left out is: in the intro and chorus sections there's almost certainly going to be a twelve-string in the mix. There is something both ancient and modern about it's jangly, bell-like sound; it's other-worldly; sensual and authoritative; folksy but also sinister and darkly resonant--no wonder Jimmy Page with his interest in Aleister Crowley played one (and Leadbelly himself went to prison for killing a man). It's so atmospheric and so badass. I love it!

Mine's currently tuned to Open F and I can now get through:

• Most of Leo Kottke's Jack Fig
• Fragments of Jimi's 'Slow Train a Coming'
• Some Led Zeppelin riffs
• and my own arrangement of 'Jesus' by the Velvet Underground

How this transforms my guitar-playing experience

The twelve-string is great for jamming and improvising as there is a less-is-more vibe since playing one course makes (on the lower four courses) two notes at once that waver in and out of phase. The cup-of-tea sustain helps here also--it emotes and is plaintive--I feel I can express myself in new ways and gain emotional relief from playing. Sometimes my fingers or plectrum manage to hit both the high and low strings of each course and other times just one of these rings-out, adding a pleasingly unexpected element. I can control this to an extent by flattening my finger and picking more of a rest stroke or just go for it and leave it up to fate.

Technique-wise my left hand has improved with more strength and a more parallel pinkie (mine tended to flop over). And my right hand too due to the added complexity and variability of the two-string courses. I feel like I could crush a walnut.

It benefits from a different playing style--regular six-string tunes can sound busy as can some chords--open and spacey seems to work best--to give the two-string courses room to breathe.

I went back to the six-string for an hour or so around ten days in--it felt weird for the first ten minutes. I liked the more mellow sound of the older instrument but it sounded baggy rather than refined, like a warm wet sock. And I missed the "passionately proclaiming heaven's imminent cosmic death-ray" element of the twelve-string. The brimstone.

Conclusion

Overall the 'same but different' experience has injected welcome new interest into my playing, refreshing my chops and allowing me to focus on emotional content rather than complex arrangements. Open tunings have further added to this where familiar fingerings lead to different notes being fluently played entirely--i feel ruts being climbed out of as I play.

Learning some twelve-string has consolidated skills I learnt from mandolin (two string courses) and bass (physicality) and allowed me to apply them to the guitar. Like a new lick of paint or a new haircut or new job it has allowed me to sense the familiar as a new frontier.

And that is the transformational lesson for me, Aristotle's good ending: we make the familiar boring but this is a choice; with a few changes we can see it as a new chapter of the uncharted adventure of our life's journey, as something brimming with possibilities, instead.

Chris Eccleshall RIP, thanks for my great guitar :-)