Tanglewood TW73 Parlor Guitar

After watching and photographing many acoustic artists in Coventry recently I've been brushing up on my acoustic playing over the last six months or so.

I've been concentrating on fingerstyle techniques mainly, something I've not really touched upon much over the years - I've always been a plectrum-holding electric guitar player or acoustic strummer.

To my horror this has almost been like learning the guitar from scratch and alongside work it's been difficult to force myself to practice on an evening. I've been learning fingerstyle (flesh only - without nails) on my Taylor 210CE dreadnought but the large body meant that the bottom-end was getting in the way and the mid and upper range was getting a bit lost too. It was also uncomfortable for me to hold and play fingerstyle on the Taylor so I decided to look for a smaller body acoustic.

After much deliberation I opted for a parlor guitar - a Tanglewood TW73. It's actually the slim neck version (TW73-NS) and although many fingerstyle guitarists may find the neck a bit on the slim side I'm getting along pretty well with it and it feels right. Even playing flesh-only it sounds very vibrant and the attack on each string pluck comes through nicely. (I did struggle for a while with nails and even tried thumb picks in combination - but after chatting with a few fingerstyle guitarists in Coventry I decided to go flesh only - this was right for me - all the nail care involved was too much and to be honest it just felt very uncomfortable and I felt too 'unconnected' with the guitar if that makes sense!).

Anyway, I'm chuffed to bits with the TW73 and it sounds very sweet - the top end sings and the mid-range is very clear and comes though well. To be honest it makes my Taylor 210CE sound a bit flat and un-lively in the mid and upper range for flesh-only fingerstle playing (it's fine strumming with a plectrum or with nails I imagine) but it does have more bottom-end then I thought it would (I'm guessing because it's as deep as the dreadnought, see photos below) and unsurprisingly sounds a bit more 'boxy' then the bigger bodied Taylor. Nevertheless it sounds nice to my ears and it's very comfortable to practice fingerstyle stuff sat on the sofa. It's really nice to just have a very different sounding acoustic guitar as another option - I'm mostly doing fingerstyle on the parlor and I'm leaving strumming with a plectrum to the Taylor.

It's interesting swapping from the Taylor to the Tanglewood in that the length/scale of each guitar is very different (again see the photos below) - it feels like swapping from a Fender precision bass guitar to a Fender strat if you can imagine what I mean! At some point i'll be looking at getting some electronics on it - possibly a Fishman Matrix Infinity - but I'm going to have to research this a bit first !

So, I've now got to knuckle down and get practicing fingerstyle more often - singing at the same time will be a challenge (being an ex-singing strummer) but once i've mastered the picking i'll be putting some demo songs together and who knows I may play some gigs again! (eek!) - we'll see, I'm in no mad rush and want to make sure I'm up to speed on all of this....

Want to hear what it sounds like?

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(Recorded with my Rode NT1-A about 2ft away - i chopped a bit too much off the bottom-end and added a bit too much to the top-end eq-wise but it's quite representative of the sound of the guitar. Apologies for the playing! Capo at 5th fret, flesh only i.e. no nails)


Here are some photos...


Slotted headstock / Cedar top



Size comparision with dreadnought



Head-on profile (precariously balanced)


Reviews of the Tanglewood TW73 and other parlor guitars can be found here:

Tanglewood TW73 reviews at Harmony Central

Guitarist Magazine Affordable Parlor Round-Up (pdf)

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