Seven-string guitar

Overview

The seven-string guitar adds one further string beyond the standard six-string design, most often used to extend the bass range (commonly a low B) but sometimes used to extend the treble range. The additional string can be added in two structurally different ways: by making the fingerboard wider — the new string is then fretted by the left hand alongside the others, or by keeping the fingerboard width unchanged and floating an extra bass string outside the neck that runs alongside the existing strings but free of the fingerboard, just as the archlute and theorbo extend the lute. Such unfrettable extra bass strings carry the historical names diapasons or bourdons.

The instrument exists today in several distinct cultural traditions, each with its own tuning conventions, repertoire, and playing style. The most prominent are the Russian seven-string, the Brazilian seven-string, the American jazz seven-string, and the modern metal seven-string.

Origin & History

The seven-string idea has a history stretching back over 230 years. During the Renaissance the lute was already being extended with floating bass strings (the theorbo and chitarrone of c. 1600 are direct ancestors of the principle). The first true seven-string guitars appear in late-18th-century European workshops; one of the earliest documented examples is the Russian seven-string developed in the late 1790s, which has its own dedicated article at Russian guitar.

The Brazilian seven-string — violão de sete cordas — emerged in the early 20th century in the Rio de Janeiro choro tradition, with the seventh string (a low C, sometimes B) added to provide a more ranging bass-line voice for the guitarist accompanying the bandolim (mandolin) and seven-key flute. The instrument is now standard in the choro genre and in much modern Brazilian instrumental music; players including Raphael Rabello, Yamandu Costa, and Marco Pereira are the contemporary reference voices.

The American jazz seven-string was developed by George Van Eps in the 1930s and made an Epiphone factory instrument by the 1940s, with a low A added to provide a lower bass voice for solo chord-melody jazz playing. Bucky Pizzarelli, Howard Alden, and George Van Eps’s son John Pisano carried the tradition forward; the instrument remains a small but stable part of the modern jazz scene.

The modern metal seven-string emerged in the 1990s with Steve Vai’s collaboration with Ibanez on the Universe model (1990) and exploded in popularity through the work of Korn, Limp Bizkit, Dream Theater, and Meshuggah. The seventh string in this tradition is tuned to a low B, a perfect fourth below the standard low E; the additional range supports the heavily-detuned riff-based writing characteristic of the genre.

Construction & Materials

A seven-string guitar is built like a six-string but with a wider neck (typically 47 to 52 mm at the nut versus 43 mm for a six-string) to accommodate the additional string. Body construction otherwise follows standard guitar practice — solid bodies (alder, mahogany, ash, basswood) for electrics, dreadnought or classical bodies (spruce top, mahogany, rosewood, or maple back and sides) for acoustics.

Strings are gauged to the chosen tuning — heavier for low-B and low-A tunings, standard-weight for open-G Russian tuning. Pickups on electric seven-strings are usually wider-window humbuckers to capture the lower fundamentals cleanly. Tuning machines must hold the heavier low strings at low tension without slipping.

Modern manufacturers include Ibanez, Schecter, ESP, Jackson, PRS, Fender, and a wide range of boutique luthiers for the metal/jazz market; Brazilian manufacturers including Del Vecchio and Di Giorgio for the choro tradition; the Sankt-Peterburg and Etalon factories for the Russian tradition.

How It’s Played

The seven-string guitar is played in the same fundamental way as a standard guitar, with the additional string treated according to its tuning. In the Russian tradition, the open-G tuning across all seven strings produces a distinctive chord-strumming approach unrelated to standard six-string technique. In the Brazilian tradition, the low-C string supports walking-bass-line accompaniment under the chord-and-melody work above. In the jazz tradition, the low-A string opens the chord-voicing palette downward, allowing self-contained solo arrangements that cover bass, harmony, and melody simultaneously. In the metal tradition, the low-B string is used primarily for power-chord and riff playing in the lowest register.

Cultural Significance

The seven-string guitar’s cultural significance is genre-specific and tradition-specific. The Russian semistrunka is one of the central instruments of 19th- and 20th-century Russian and Soviet popular music. The Brazilian violão de sete cordas is essential to the choro tradition and to much modern Brazilian instrumental music. The American jazz seven-string defines a particular school of solo chord-melody jazz playing. The modern metal seven-string defines an entire generation of progressive and groove-metal writing.

The four traditions remain almost completely separate in practice — players normally specialise in one of the four tunings and one of the four repertoires. Cross-tradition players (Yamandu Costa works in both choro and contemporary classical settings, Howard Alden has performed with Brazilian musicians on his American seven-string) are rare and individually noteworthy.

Notable Examples & Recordings

• Russian: Vladimir Vysotsky’s complete song catalogue, the Romen Theatre Romani song archive (see Russian guitar for detail).
• Brazilian: Raphael Rabello (the central late-20th-century choro seven-string player), Yamandu Costa, Marco Pereira, the Trio Madeira Brasil ensemble.
• Jazz: George Van Eps (Mellow Guitar, 1956; My Guitar, 1968), Bucky Pizzarelli (Solo Flight, 1981), Howard Alden, Ron Eschete.
• Metal: Steve Vai (Passion and Warfare, 1990; the Ibanez Universe model), Korn (Korn, 1994), Dream Theater, Meshuggah, Animals as Leaders.

Related Instruments

• Guitar — the standard six-string Spanish guitar.
• Russian guitar — the open-G seven-string Russian variant treated separately.
• Baritone guitar — an alternative way of extending the low range.
• Cigar-box guitar — a separate folk-string-instrument tradition.
• Lute — the historical precursor to the European stringed-instrument family.
• Theorbo — the Baroque extended-bass lute that established the floating-bass-string principle.
• Eight-string guitar — the further extension into the modern metal tradition.

Where to Hear It

Live: at choro nights in Rio de Janeiro and the Brazilian-music venues of major cities worldwide; at Russian-diaspora cultural events and the Romen Theatre in Moscow; at solo jazz-guitar appearances in the chord-melody tradition; at modern progressive-metal and groove-metal concerts.

• Wikipedia: Seven-string guitar
• Wikidata: Seven-string guitar (Q2096201)
• DBpedia: Seven-string guitar
• Wikimedia Commons: Seven-string guitars

Learning Resources

A student seven-string guitar costs around 300 to 700 USD (Ibanez Gio, Schecter Damien, Squier); intermediate Ibanez RG, Schecter, ESP, or Jackson seven-strings 800 to 2,000 USD; professional Ibanez Prestige, ESP USA, PRS, Fender Custom Shop, or boutique seven-strings 3,000 to 8,000 USD. Brazilian-tradition acoustic seven-strings by Del Vecchio or Di Giorgio cost 1,500 to 5,000 USD. Standard six-string method material applies for the metal and jazz traditions with the seventh string introduced as an extension; tradition-specific method material exists in Portuguese (for the Brazilian style), Russian (for the semistrunka tradition), and English (Howard Alden, John Pisano for the American jazz tradition).

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are there four different seven-string tuning traditions?
Because the seven-string design was independently adapted in four separate musical cultures — late-18th-century Russia, early-20th-century Brazil, mid-20th-century American jazz, and late-20th-century American metal — each of which made its own decision about how to use the additional string. Each tradition has its own internal logic and repertoire.

Is the metal seven-string the same as the Brazilian seven-string?
No — completely different instruments in practice. The metal seven-string adds a low B (a fourth below standard low E) and is used primarily for power-chord and riff playing. The Brazilian seven-string adds a low C (or B) and is used for walking-bass-line accompaniment under chord-and-melody work. The construction details (neck width, fingerboard, pickups) and the playing style are different in every respect.

Who invented the seven-string guitar?
The form has multiple independent origins across over 230 years. The earliest documented seven-string guitars appear in late-18th-century European workshops; the modern Russian, Brazilian, jazz, and metal traditions are each later independent adaptations.

Can I tune a six-string guitar to seven-string tuning?
No — by definition you would need to add a seventh string. You can drop-tune a six-string to lower pitches, but the seven-string instrument is structurally different.

What’s the practical difference between a seven-string and a baritone guitar?
The seven-string adds one additional string while keeping the original six in standard tuning (in most modern variants). The baritone guitar transposes all six strings to a lower fundamental. Both reach the lower register; the seven-string preserves access to standard chord shapes for the upper six strings, while the baritone shifts the entire fingerboard down.