I’ve been always playing a standard 6 string guitar, but one day I wondered how many strings can a guitar have?
Most acoustic and electric guitars have only 6 strings. 7 and 12 string guitars are also fairly common. But the number of strings on some guitars can go as high as 42!
Guitar has a long history, and it evolved from having 5 strings in 1600s to 6 strings in 1800s when the classical guitar was developed with the same standard EADGBE (from top to bottom string) tuning we use today. So today if you pick up a guitar at your friends house it will most likely be a 6 string with standard tuning.
Standard tuning proved to be most practical in playing both chords and melodies in classical music. It is still most common tuning used these days. However, some modern guitarists prefer a number of alternate tunings.
If you are looking to learn to play a guitar get yourself a six stringer and learn standard tuning. You can experiment with tunings once you get your basics down. In most cases you won’t even have to change the strings.
Today if you pick up a guitar at your friend’s house it will most likely be a 6 string guitar with standard tuning.
While 6 string guitar are most common, there are lots of variations that are worth exploring.
Four and Five String Bass Guitars
Typically it is bass guitars that have 4 and sometimes 5 strings. It is true not just for electric but also for acoustic bass guitars.
Bass guitars use much thicker strings, and they sound an octave lower than those of the regular guitar.
Standard 4 string bass guitars are tuned just like standard 6 string guitars (with missing 2 bottom strings). There is a wider variety of tunings used for 5 string bass guitars.
There are also 6 string bass guitars, but they are not as common as 4 and 5-string models.
Seven String Guitars
7-string guitars are mostly used by rock and metal guitar players like Steve Vai and John Petrucci.
The tuning of the seven string guitar mainly follows standard guitar tuning with additional (top) string tuned to low B. Of course there are exceptions, but I won’t get into them in this article. After all, it is about strings and not about tunings.
There is also a number of jazz and classical guitarists that use 7-string acoustic and electric guitars.
Russian Seven String Guitar
A notable model of a seven string guitar is a so called Russian guitar (also sometimes called a Gypsy guitar). It was actually more popular than a standard six string guitar all the way to 1960s. Seven string Russian guitars were mass produced and were very affordable.
Russian guitars were most commonly tuned to an open G chord: DGBDGBD. Since six string guitars were not widely available up until 1970s, some musicians retuned their seven-stringers to match the standard six string guitar.
Eight String Electric Guitars
As number of strings goes up the number of players who use them and can handle them well decreases drastically. If six string guitars are used by millions, and seven string ones by thousands, eight string guitars are used by hundreds if not dozen of guitar players.
Most notable 8-string guitar players are jazz guitarist Charlie Hunter, and a metal guitarist Tosin Abasi from Animals as Leaders who use additional strings to play bass guitar parts:
Many 8-string guitars are extended range guitars.
Nine and Ten String Guitars
Definitely not as common as other variations nine and ten string guitars are used only by a handful musicians.
One notable musician who uses an exclusive custom build 9 string guitar, is a Russian blues guitarist Yuri Naumov:
Twelve String Guitars
Twelve string acoustic guitars are actually quite common. They are not rare and exotic because additional strings are run side by side the main strings. Playing a 12-string guitar is not much different from playing a standard 6 string.
Strings are tuned in unison with main strings (with top 2 being an octave lower) which results in bright and rich tone.
Beyond Twelve Strings
There is a good number of exotic guitars out there that feature 14, 18, and any other number of strings. Typically those are double, triple and multi neck custom built guitars.
If you are interested in unusual and custom guitars a great resource for you is the book Hand Made, Hand Played: The Art & Craft of Contemporary Guitars by Robert Shaw. The book is beautifully illustrated and features a collection of over 300 custom guitars.
14-string Kali guitar
Kali is really just a modification of a 12-string guitar with added bass strings that run outside of the fingerboard:
The pictures on Kali’s website are very small and really don’t give this guitar justice. But you can see gorgeous picture of Kali guitar in the book.
18 and 20-string harp guitars
Now we are getting into multi neck world of harp guitar. These guitars are called “harp guitars” because they resemble a harp in appearance and somewhat in the sound. Of course very few of these can compete with actual harps in the number of strings (typically harps use 40 to 47 strings).
Tonedevil S-18NST harp guitar is a classically styled nylon strung harp guitar with a classic 6 string neck, 6 sub bass strings, and 6 super treble strings. This 18 string harp guitar sounds just as cool as it looks:
Tonedevil also makes a 20 string version of the harp guitar with 6 standard guitar strings, 7 harp subs, 7 super treble strings. Very cool!
42-string Pikasso guitar
If you got this far you might be thinking that you’ve seen a lot in the wild stringed world of guitars. But I saved the best for last!
Nothing beats Pikasso, a 42 (yes, 42!) string guitar. It was designed and built by Linda Manzer, Canadian luthier, in collaboration with and for Pet Metheny. She tells a story of its origin:
In 1984 Pat Metheny asked me to design and build a guitar with “as many strings as possible.” The resulting collaboration was the Pikasso guitar.
– Linda Manzer (Manzer Guitars – Pikasso)
Check out Pet Metheny playing his Pikasso:
Pikasso features four necks and two sound holes. You definitely have to be a virtuoso to play it!
As you can see, not all guitars have 6 strings. If you are new to the world of guitars and are looking to learn to play the instrument, pick up the standard 6 string guitar. Typically 6 string guitars (be it acoustic or electric) are much more available and affordable. There are also way more learning resources for 6 string guitars with standard tuning.
