Slip sliding away
Written by Dermot on Thursday, 05 November 2009
"The Weissenborn was invented by a German fellow named Herman Weissenborn who lived in San Francisco during the early part of the 20th century. He specialised in building instruments that were loud, as guitars were starting to be played with orchestras at the time…that’s also how the Dobro (with a resonator inside) came about. Weissenborn’s idea was to make an instrument that had a longer resonating chamber. "If you look at a Weissenborn you can see that its neck is hollow and is part of the body, so it has a larger resonating chamber. It didn’t make it louder, but it did create more evenness of tone between the strings, longer sustain and a bit more of an eerie sound. People compare its sound to a cello or a piano.
"Mine is a Celtic Cross, which is a company based in Victoria, British Columbia. This was built by Neil Russel who runs Celtic Cross."
Video
Headwater in action (featuring Tim on Weissenborn) at The Latest Bar, Brighton, November 2009.
