|
|
||||
|
 |
|
 Steven Pyott  My name is Steve Pyott and I Iive on the northern outskirts of Brisbane, the capital city of the Sunshine State of Queensland in Australia, with my wife, Lesley. We originally come from the U.K. - we migrated here in 1981 for me to take up a lecturing position in Textile Science and Technology in a local College of Advanced Education faculty that trained Home Economics teachers and professional Home Economists for industry and commerce. The C.A.E. eventually became one of the campuses of the Queensland University of Technology - one of three Universities in Brisbane. I have since retired from this position due to permanent injury and disability to my left hip that was caused by a serious car accident in 1992 and I now run my own textile consultancy business - TCS Textile Consultancy Services. We have two grown sons, David and Michael, who now live away from home and Lesley is the Teacher-Librarian at one of the primary campuses of a local Catholic College. My interests include food and cooking, theatre, cinema, Macintosh computers, all kinds of music, including folk, rock/pop, and baroque classical but particularly original 1910s, 20s, 30s and 40s blues, ragtime, traditional jazz and hot dance band recordings which I collect avidly on CD. I play the tenor banjo and tenor guitar, although I cannot consider myself an advanced player. I also love playing the washboard in jazz bands and I collect metal washboards - I'm always looking for that perfect one to play! I became interested in playing, and then collecting the tenor guitar, through first playing the tenor banjo - I have a couple of 1920s tenor banjos - a 1922 Paramount Style A and a late twenties B & D Silver Bell No. 1. My first tenor guitar was a custom luthier built replica of a Maccaferri style tenor because living in Australia means, that while not unknown, tenor guitars are quite rare and hard to get hold of here. I am now completely hooked by this fascinating instrument that seems to be available in so many different forms. I now have about twenty vintage and modern luthier built tenor guitars, including some very unusual and rare models that are obviously one-off custom orders. I have a number of Gibson tenors, most of which are analogues of well known six string models, including a 1958 Les Paul Special, a 1965 SG Standard, a 1954 ES-330TDN, a 1956 ES-175, a 1962 J-160E, two ETG-150s (1954 and 1967) and I may soon be getting a Gibson ES 350 tenor that I have just tracked down. I also have several National resonator tenors including a silver 1937 Style 3 single cone, a silver 1931 Style 1 tricone, a brown 1930s Triolian and a 1930s wood bodied Rosita. I also have a 1954 Martin 0-18T, a 1950s Harmony archtop guitar and a Harmony flat top guitar. I have a modern electric tenor guitar called a 'Tenorcaster' made by Joel Eckhaus of Earnest Instruments which combines the two fascinating concepts of the tenor guitar and the Telecaster. Joel is also making me one of his beautiful archtop tenors - the 'Veronica'. I have several modern replicas/copies of Selmer Maccaferri four string guitars, including two Eddie Freeman Specials and two tenor guitars, with the closest in design to the originals having been made by David Hodson in England. The story behind the Eddie Freeman Special is a particularly fascinating episode in the history of the tenor guitar. Photos of most of my instruments will become available in the GUITARS section. I eventually discovered and immediately subscribed and now regularly contribute to a web site called the 'Tenor Guitar Registry' which was set up last year by my fellow conspirator, keen tenor guitar enthusiast and musician on this web site project, Mark Josephs and I am very grateful that he did, because it has now grown and blossomed into this fascinating new tenor guitar project. I am planning to prepare and publish a photographic history of the tenor guitar centred around the instruments of my collection and I have made several approaches. Initially, I am also considering the idea of a calender featuring twelve of the most interesting tenor guitars that I own. Welcome to tenorguitar.com! Steven Pyott steve@tenorguitar.com  Mark JosephsTom MolyneauxPatrick ReinhartTom VincentAnd feel free to e-mail any one of us with a question or comment |
|
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
contact: