There's nothing more inspiring than playing a new and unusual instrument. When I first heard about the Gibson M-6 ($2,250), an octave guitar with a teardrop-shaped body like an A-style mandolin, I couldn't wait to get my hands on one.
I play guitar and mandolin, so I was curious to see if Gibson's claim was true: that, with the M-6, guitarists “can get the tone of a mandolin without having to adapt to a different tuning.” To be able to get a mandolin sound on a song, without having to change the way I play the guitar parts, would be very useful.
A GUITAR BY ANY OTHER NAME
In terms of build quality and design, Gibson delivers. The all-acoustic M-6 has an attractive spruce top; maple neck, back, and sides; an ebony fingerboard; nickel-plated hardware; and a lacquered finish. Mine came in the lovely Heritage Cherry Sunburst finish, and the 3-D look of it on the back of the instrument is absolutely stunning. An inlaid headstock and plush hard-shell case complete the package.
Up and down the neck, the instrument plays and sounds great. Each string is tuned an octave above the strings of a normal guitar, and the highest open E string is the same pitch as the highest open strings on a mandolin. The M-6 offers 20 frets for all strings (unlike Gibson's A-style mandolins, which add four frets under the A and E strings). The distance from nut to bridge is 14 inches, and the strings are ¼-inch apart.
The M-6 gives you a full, open-string resonance from chords and melodies that differs from a guitar played with a capo at the 12th fret. The trade-off is that the space between the M-6's strings is smaller than on a guitar. That makes it tricky to play chords with the usual fingerings, even if you have small fingers, like I do.
Although my main guitar has a 3/4 scale, I found myself frequently reworking basic chords on the M-6 so I wouldn't have to scrunch my fingers together. But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, the extended reach that the reduced scale and string spacing offers allowed me to build chords that would be impossible to play on a standard guitar.
SIX OF ONE
In addition to the body shape and construction, there are other factors that help give a mandolin its characteristic sound: doubled strings and chord voicings. The M-6 has six single strings, so it lacks that double-string timbre. Nevertheless, it still sounds quite mandolin-like when played melodically. Voicing your chords like a mandolinist helps further the illusion.
In certain registers, particularly the upper frets of the lower strings, the M-6 sounded a bit like a pizzicato violin when I played melodically. The instrument can also imitate a ukulele when certain chord shapes are strummed rhythmically with a finger. You can get a lot of mileage from an instrument with this kind of versatility.
PICKER'S DREAM
As an octave guitar, the M-6 is a joy to play. It's bright and resonant, with a nasal quality that makes it decidedly like a mandolin. Guitarists who want a mandolin sound from a six-string guitar need look no further. The M-6 delivers as promised.
