A Most Famous Twelve String Guitar
The Rickenbacker 360/12
What is a twelve string guitar?
Well, that's easy, a normal guitar has six strings, a twelve string has twelve. But it's not quite that simple. We only have ten fingers (and only five of those are on our fretting hand and one of those is a thumb) so a guitar with twelve strings would be very difficult to play if those strings were independently tuned and arranged on the neck and fretboard. The twelve string guitar, like the mandolin, the piano and various South American stringed instruments has courses of strings - in this case six courses, two strings in each course. The top two treble courses are tuned in unison while the remaining four courses are tuned an octave apart. So, put simply, a twelve string guitar is like a six string guitar with an extra set of strings duplicating the pitch of each six strings, an octave higher for the E, A, D, and G strings, and in unison for the B and top E strings. Make sense?
What does a twelve string guitar sound like?
The extra set of strings introduces a wondrous abundance of harmonic effects to the sound of the guitar. A twelve string guitar, no matter how well set up, will be difficult to tune absolutely correctly. This is because the guitarist is fretting pairs of strings of different gauges and this makes precise tuning impossible. This impreciseness, however, as is the case with impreciseness in many fields, brings with it a richness, a swirling maelstrom of chorus and phasing effects that gives the twelve string guitar its characteristic jangling sound. It's very pleasing to the ear.
Why is the Rickenbacker Twelve String one of the most famous guitars?
The Beatles and Rickenbacker had a fine symbiotic relationship. John Lennon's first and most famous guitar was a Rickenbacker. Paul McCartney played a Hofner bass in the early years but many of The Beatles most famous songs were actually recorded with his Rickenbacker bass. By this time the band had stopped touring so the Hofner bass was the most visible in his career, but the Rickenbacker actually suited McCartney's melodic style better. In 1964, George Harrison was given a double bound 360/12 Rickenbacker twelve string guitar, the actual second instrument of this kind manufactured by the company. He played it on the songs A Hard Day's Night, You Can't Do That and Eight Days A Week to name but three. Crucially, it was this guitar that Harrison played in the movie, A Hard Day's Night. Musicians both professional and aspiring, saw and heard the Rickenbacker twelve string and lusted after it. Roger McGuinn of The Byrds saw Harrison playing his Ricky in a darkened movie theatre, went out and bought one and soon made musical history with a revolutionary brand of folk-rock music based on the chiming sound of the Rickenbacker electric twelve string guitar.
The innovations of the Rickenbacker 12 string guitar.
A couple of innovations that are not immediately visually apparent - the Rickenbacker twelve string guitar has two sets of tuning pegs, a slotted set and a solid set. This means the head of the instrument is not much bigger than a normal guitar's. In addition the arrangement of the strings is slightly unusual - the octave strings are situated closest to the treble side of the instrument rather than the bass side as is more normal. This means a much more solid single string style is possible. Roger McGuinn, in particular, benefited from this innovation.
A short list of some influential Rickenbacker twelve string players is a cavalcade of melodic guitar: George Harrison, Tom Petty, Chris Martin of Coldplay, Roger McGuinn, Pete Townshend of The Who, and Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys.
A special place in guitar history.
A very special place in musical history will always belong to the Rickenbacker twelve string guitar - it was on this guitar that George Harrison struck the most famous chord of all at the beginning of the song A Hard Day's Night.
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