The French composer Claude Debussy reputedly said that "Music is the space between the notes."If this is true, then the musical significance of sound envelopes (the qualities of a note's timbre, sustain and decay) cannot be subducted. What, then, are the implications for an instrument, in particular the acoustic guitar, that inherently lacks consistent controllability among the sound envelopes of the various notes that can be produced on it? This is the question that plagued the keen ear and intellect of the Spanish guitar virtuoso Narciso Yepes (1927-1997), the problem that he was to resolve so eloquently in his design of the modern ten-string guitar...
"I have not added four strings to the guitar out of a whim, but out of necessity. The strings that I have added incorporate all the natural [sympathetic] resonance that the instrument lacked in eight of the twelve notes of the equal tempered scale."
(Narciso Yepes. Ser instrumento. Speech of Ingression into the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, delivered on 30 April 1989.)
"In the first place, the four supplementary strings [C2, Bb2, Ab2, Gb2] give it a balanced sound which the six-string guitar is far from having. In fact, at the moment of playing a note on one string, another begins to vibrate by sympathetic resonance. On the six-string guitar this phenomenon is produced only on four notes [E, A, B and D], while on mine the twelve notes of the scale each have their sympathetic resonance. Thus the lopsided sonority of the six-string guitar is transformed into a wider and equal sonority on a ten-string guitar. Secondly, I do not content myself with letting the extra strings vibrate passively in sympathy; I use them, I play them according to the demands of the music to be interpreted. I can control the volume of the resonances, or I can suppress them. I can damp one if it is inconvenient in a given passage, but if I can do this it is precisely because I have these resonances available. This allows me to modify at will not only the volume but also the tone-colours."
(Narciso Yepes. The Ten-String Guitar. Trans. Lionel Salter. La Cantarela, July 1973.)
'Another reason for the 10-string is that guitarists are always playing music written for the Renaissance or the Baroque lute. We can say that the lute is to the guitar as the harpsichord is to the piano. And if this is true, how can we take the music written for these eight, nine, or 10-course instruments - even thirteen and fourteen courses, in the case of the baroque lute - and transcribe it for a guitar, which has only six strings? [...] I want to be able to make "legitimate" transcriptions in which the music loses nothing, but rather improves in quality.'
(Narciso Yepes. 1978. "The Ten-String Guitar: Overcoming the Limitations of Six Strings". Interviewed by L. Snitzler. Guitar Player 12, p. 26.)
In addition, since the moment of its conception, the ten-string guitar has attracted the interest of a number of
significant composers. To name but three, Maurice Ohana, Bruno Maderna, and Leonardo Balada have all composed substantial works for this instrument, embracing its extended possibilities.
Today, with the emergence of exciting new players and new compositions, the journey continues...
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Information about the 10-String Classical Guitar designed by Narciso Yepes
