STRINGING A TIPLE
HOMEMADE BOTTLENECK SLIDES
JONI MITCHELL GOES SHOPPING
I've been given a ten-string tiple. Can you tell me how to tune it and what string gauges to use?
Mike Cooper
Rome, Italy
Tiple (teeh-pleh) means treble in Spanish. Tiples of one sort or another have been played all over Latin America for nearly 500 years. The first tiples were small treble guitars brought to the New World from Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries. They were favored by sailors and colonists alike because their small size made them easy to make and to stow. These instruments became established in Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Colombia, and Argentina and evolved in unique ways over the centuries. So when you say tiple, you could be referring to any one of a gamut of different instruments, with differing sizes, shapes, construction, stringing, and tuning. The fact that your instrument has ten strings narrows the field to some extent, but not very much.
Since there are no European tiples and all the Latin American tiples have four, five, or 12 strings, I'll guess that what you have is a ten-string Martin tiple, an instrument still made today in small quantities. It has an interesting story attached to it: In the early '20s, a friend of Christian Frederick Martin III sent him an Argentinean tiple with ten gut strings. Ukuleles were all the rage at the time. Martin must have taken quite a fancy to the thing because in 1924 tiples (the pronunciation had by then become "tipples") appeared in the Martin catalogue. The original tuning was changed to match that of the ukulele, but the stringing was kept more or less original, with four courses: two exterior double courses and two interior triple courses.
The strings and tunings on a Martin tiple are as follows:
1: .010, tuned to B (or A)
2: .010, B (or A)
3: .013, F#
4: .027, F# (octave lower)
5: .013, F#
6: .015, D
7: .029, D (octave lower)
8: .015, D
9: .009, A
10: .025, A (octave lower)
All strings are unwound except for strings 4, 7, and 10, which are bronze wound.
--William Cumpiano
I have tried all the available commercial glass slides, and they are too big for my tastes. Also, there is a powerful mojo in rolling your own, so to speak. How can I cut my own bottlenecks?
Mike Nibert
Taylor, Michigan
For the technical portion of your question, I contacted Eric Park, who has made and sold over 50,000 Gen-U-Wine glass bottleneck guitar slides through his distribution company Woodlark (PO Box 19209, Sacramento, CA 95819; [916] 442-7217). He told me that "there are a number of methods for making your own slides. The best home method is to use a tungsten-carbide hacksaw blade. Saw all the way around, rather than straight through. The glass will break before you have finished sawing, but the break will follow the score. Another method is to tie a string soaked in kerosene around the bottle's neck, set it on fire, and then plunge the bottle into cold water. The glass will basically explode, but with luck you will have something resembling a bottleneck slide. A third method is to use the standard jug and bottle cutter available in kits from hobby stores. Whatever method you choose, you will have a lot of sanding to do afterward. Use emery paper rather than regular sandpaper." No matter which technique you try, wear heavy gloves and safety glasses.
For a comment on the mojo power of cutting your own slides, I called Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo in New Orleans. Zoe, who answered the phone there, told me, "There is a powerful psychological and mechanical advantage to making your own slide, since only you know exactly what you want. There's more of an emotional investment in things you make yourself; they are more precious to you. People will see that emotional investment reflected in your music."
--Dale Miller
I was listening the other day to Joni Mitchell's Hejira album, and I was struck by these lines in "Song for Sharon": "I went to Staten Island, Sharon / To buy myself a mandolin / And I saw the long white dress of love / On a store-front mannequin." Now, I've been listening to this album for years, but it just now occurred to me that these lyrics may refer to the Mandolin Brothers store in Staten Island. Is this the case? Did Joni Mitchell go buy a mandolin there sometime in the '70s? What did she buy? Am I crazy for even wondering about this stuff?
Elaine Camero
Boston, Massachusetts
Stan Jay, president of Mandolin Brothers, would like to assure you that you are not crazy, and that he has been asked this question many times over the years. Joni Mitchell did indeed make a trip to his store on Staten Island in 1976, where she bought a Gibson K-4 mandocello, built around 1915. It is a large (guitar-sized) version of the Gibson F-4 mandolin and is tuned C G D A, one octave below a mandola. On the same trip, she also bought a circa 1915 Martin 000-28 herringbone guitar. It was during the ferry ride back to New York City from Staten Island that she began writing "Song for Sharon."
--Bronwen Morgan
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