Treebeard is a baritone guitar with 735mm (approximately 29") scale and a rich deep tone that makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck! As Baritones are often described as the "cello of guitars" I decided that it needed a cello shape and made it with a 14 fret join to the body rather than 15 or 16. With its long scale, this guitar will tune down to A-A, but its best range is B-B and the various open tunings from this base. It is a lot more easy to play than you think and is perfect for fingerstyle using open tunings. It compliments well standard scale guitars in open tunings as from the B-B base, C shaped tunings are G tunings, G shaped are D tunings, F shaped are C tunings and D shaped are A tunings.
It has taken me a while to settle on appropriate string gauges, but I recommend heavies (D'Addario EJ18) for B-B tuning and open tunings around this base; mediums (D'Addario EJ17) for C-C tuning and open tunings around this base; and lights (D'Addarion EJ16) for D-D tuning and open tunings around this base. All of these options give total string tension close to that of light strings on a "normal" scale guitar. An alternative string choice for B-B tuning is to use a set of extra -lights (D'Addario EJ15), discard the first (0.010" string) and use a 0.070" string for the 6th string. This gives a wound second string which I like the feel of a lot but is a lot harder to play if you do lots of second string bends.
By Serendipity, the guitar was named "Treebeard", it is in fact "Tree Beards" if you are Irish or "Trois Barbes" if you are French, three guitars in one. In fact it is four - with light gauge strings (0.012"-0.053") tuned one step down from standard, D-D and and Capo at the second fret and you have a 12 fretter with 655mm scale tuned E-E and the same string tension as a normal guitar (see "Big Bill") . I got this idea from Stefan Sobell and his "D" guitar and he credits the original idea to Ralph Bown. James Goodall recommends the same thing for his 28" scale length barione. Three guitars for the price of one!!! In fact Bill Briscome kindly sent me and article from Guitarist Magazine, July 1995, about the "new" Ovation Long Neck acoustic guitar. Fractionally shorter scale length but basically a D guitar tuned one step down.
You can hear a recording of my European spruce/Brazilian rosewood Treebeard here:
