There are many varieties of ten-string guitar, including:

Uncoursed ten-stringed guitars

<!-- check Talk page: === Ten-stringed harp guitars === **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](https://bliptext.com/articles/harp), while those of the principal neck are played as a [guitar](https://bliptext.com/articles/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: ### Décacorde In the early 19th century [Ferdinando Carulli](https://bliptext.com/articles/ferdinando-carulli) and René Lacôte developed a harp guitar they called the Décacorde (French for "ten-string"). Carulli played this type of guitar and wrote a method for it titled Méthode Complète pour le Décacorde. In it he describes the tuning as C-D-E-F-G-A-d-g-b-e' (strings 10 to 1), with the upper five strings A-d-g-b-e' fretted and the lower basses C-D-E-F-G not fretted. Carulli also wrote [divertissements](https://bliptext.com/articles/divertissement) for this instrument. Two Décacordes by Lacôte are housed in the Music Museum of the Cité de la Musique in Paris: There is also a Décacorde (attributed to Lacôte) that was in the workshop of Françoise Sinier de Ridder, which has 7 strings on the neck (fretted) and 3 sub-basses (unfretted strings). "Sinier and de Ridder have pointed out that the décacorde was made in three different string configurations. Those instruments that adhere to the Carulli patent have 5 strings on the fingerboard and 5 floating basses [...]. Other specimens that do not bear the patent stamp are known with 6 strings on the fingerboard and 4 floating, and 7 strings on the fingerboard and 3 floating. I now speculate that these latter may have been configured, not as true Carulli Patent Décacordes, but as similar-appearing Lacôte ten-strings tuned more traditionally, and perhaps, played "professionally."" ### Other romantic harp guitars Period harp guitars built by Johann Gottfried Scherzer survive. A copy of one of these, based on an original circa 1862, has six fretted and four unfretted strings. [Johann Kaspar Mertz](https://bliptext.com/articles/johann-kaspar-mertz) is known to have played ten-string harp guitars. Based on surviving instruments and [urtexts](https://bliptext.com/articles/urtext-edition) of music written for it, the tuning was AI-BI-C-D-E-A-d-g-b-e'. -->

Yepes' ten-string guitar

The extended-range classical guitar is a classical guitar with additional strings, normally extra bass strings past the bass E string, that are available on the fingerboard. Many configurations have been produced, but the ten-string classical guitar received a particular boost in 1964, when Narciso Yepes performed the Concierto de Aranjuez with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra , using a ten-string guitar invented by Yepes in collaboration with José Ramírez III, with a specific tuning designed to supply sympathetic string resonance to all twelve notes of the chromatic scale, in unison with any note played on the treble strings. This was significant for two reasons: The use of the ten-string classical guitar is similar to that of the harp guitar: Unlike the harp guitar, the extended-range classical guitar has a single neck and allows all strings to be fretted. While the six-string classical guitar remains the standard and most common instrument, since 1963 ten-string guitars in similar configuration to the original Ramírez have been adopted by many classical guitarists and produced by several first-class luthiers, using both Yepes' original tuning and others. In January 2009, Gadotti Guitars announced the 10 String Nylon King Electric, a solid body, nylon-stringed ten-string guitar, suitable for both Yepes and other tunings such as the Baroque. A ten-string jazz guitar by Mike Shishkov, based on the ten-string extended-range classical guitar, was demonstrated at the 3rd International Ten String Guitar Festival in October 2008.

Ten String Electric Guitar

These guitars are either custom-made or produced in small quantities due to the very niche market they are intended for. Most of these instruments are tuned like nine string guitars with either an extra High A string or an extra Low G# string, in that arrangement for the latter : G# ,C#, F#, B, E, A, D, G, B, E.

Five- and six-coursed guitars with ten strings

Baroque guitar

The baroque guitar is one of the earliest instruments considered a guitar, and the first to have significant surviving repertoire. Surviving baroque guitars have (or originally had) nine or ten strings, in five courses. Stradivarius guitars (of which two, the Hill (1688) and Rawlins (1700) survive complete, plus a neck and several other fragments) all had ten strings in five courses.

English guitar

The English guitar is a type of cittern that was particularly popular in Europe from around 1750 to 1850. The English guitar has a pear-shaped body, a flat base, and a short neck. Its distinguishing feature is that it has ten strings in six courses, of which the highest eight are paired in four courses (duplicated strings) with the two lowest strings in two separate courses. This is the same stringing as was later used for the B.C. Rich Bich 10 Guitar, although the traditional tuning for the English guitar is a repetitive open C tuning (C E GG cc ee gg).

Viola guitar

The viola guitar is a guitar with ten light steel strings in five courses, played with the fingers rather than with a plectrum. It is particularly prevalent in the folk music of Brazil, where it's called "viola caipira" (country guitar) or simply "viola." The viola braguesa and viola amarantina are other types of ten-string Portuguese folk guitars, which are possibly predecessors of the Brazilian instrument.

Bich 10

The initial B.C. Rich Bich design is a six-course instrument, with four two-string courses. The top E and B strings are strung as unison pairs, and the G and D strings as pairs with a principal and octave string, in the manner of the top four courses of a twelve-string guitar. The A and lower E strings are single-string courses. This unusual stringing was said to obtain the brightness of the twelve-string guitar, while allowing higher levels of distortion before the sound became muddy. The Bich had a conventional six-string headstock for the six principal strings. The four additional strings are tuned by machine heads positioned in the body, past the tailpiece, with a large angled notch allowing access to the tuners. This radical body shape also countered the common tendency of coursed electric guitars to be head-heavy due to the weight of the extra machine heads. One notable guitar player who played a 10-string Bich was Dave Mustaine who played one during his early professional years with Metallica. Mustaine only used the regular six string configuration on the headstock and never used the other four strings. Mustaine also played the guitar during the early years of his band Megadeth. The design was moderately successful, but many players bought it for the body shape alone, and removed the extra strings. B.C. Rich eventually released six-string guitars with the Bich body shape. All Bich variants are hardtail guitars with through body necks and two humbucking pickups.

Guitar-like instruments with ten strings

Close relatives of the guitar with ten strings include: