Acoustic bass guitar of acoustic bass guitars. The bajo sexto, with six pairs of strings, resembles a twelve-string guitar tuned an octave lower. The heavy gauge strings generate a large string tension, yet the guitar is built relatively lightly. Musicians began to use the bajo sexto in Texas in the 1920s with the rise of "Tex-Mex" music, and remains in common use to play parts that would be played by the piano in traditional American popular music. It matches the standard tuning of a 12-string guitar, one octave lower. The tuning of these instruments is (capital letters are an octave lower than small
Ten-string guitar Ten-string guitar There are many varieties of ten-string guitar, including: Harp guitars are guitars to which extra strings have been added which are never fretted but may be plucked or strummed. These strings are therefore played in a manner similar to those of the harp, while those of the principal neck are played as a guitar, hence the name. Often a second neck, parallel to the fretboard, carries these extra strings. There have been many designs of harp guitar, but in the nineteenth century ten-string versions were particularly popular. Information on nineteenth-century harp guitars comes from three main primary sources: