What The World Needs Now Are More Yotar Players

The Yotar:  Guitar For the Rest of Us
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What's a Yotar?  Think guitar made easy.  If I can play, then you can play.  Really.

In junior high, I watched as my best friend, David Fowler, learned to play guitar and as a result gained fame and national fortune.  Well, not exactly.  But he did seem to have a number of girls hanging around him whenever he played the guitar and sang Beatles songs or crooned like James Taylor. To this day, I don't think James Taylor can play the signature Taylor riffs, pull-offs and hammer-ons like David Fowler can.  Then again, neither can I.

By the time I was in high school, I had tried a few times to pick up a guitar and learn those magic chords.  However, with fingers blessed with the dexterity of cattle hooves, I ended up frustrated.  At age 20, I learned a few things about playing the electric bass guitar and finally achieved a dream of playing along as David pulled in the girls.  Unfortunately, girls do not seem as attracted to the bass guitar, or me for that matter.  And without David playing the tune, there was no need for a bass guitarist.  At the University of Nebraska, you won't find too many people sitting out under an oak tree playing their bass guitar, 475 feet of extension cord trailing back into a Harper Hall dorm room to power a home-made guitar amplifier.  Even after I bought a battery-powered Pignose amp, when it comes time to throw the line down, "You want to go to the snack bar for a soda?", the guitar is in one hand and the amp in the other, leaving no arm to embrace a new-found friend. Being a bass guitar player only is pathetic at best.

"If God had wanted us to become guitar players,
He would have created 6 fingers on each of our hands.... instead of four!"

Even so, post-university I would find occasions to play bass guitar (when someone else was up there playing lead). I had the good sense to marry a guitar-playing woman (the night she brought her guitar into my mother's house while we were dating and mom asked her to play and she sang "Killing Me Softly", I was done), and once in a while we would make music together, although she hated my deliberate only-on-the-beat-like-a-bass-drum rhythm.  When I started doing summer camps, I was so desperate to have some guitar music around the campfire, I would cart The Wife's six-string Ovation along, and simply play bass notes to have some rhythm and beat.  High school kids didn't seem to mind.  Perhaps it helped drown out my singing.

In 1992, David Fowler called one day and said, out of the blue, "I've been looking at this Yotar guitar in the back of the Songs and Creations Tunebook.  I think it's something you could do, Friedli".  The Tunebook is THE definitive standard for singing around the campfire.  Within a week, I had rounded up a few hundred dollar bills, dialed the number and placed the order.

What arrived was (and still is) a beauty.  My Yotar is built from a Jasmine (the second line of the Takamine guitars), and a Yotar is best described as an overgrown ukulele. (Even the orginator is refering to it as a uketar these days, but I'll stick with Yotar.) If you have heard Hawaiian music, or if you remember Tiny Tim, ukuleles have a, uhm...er...unique sound.  Tinny.  High-pitched.  Downright annoying.  A uke has a short neck of strings and a small body which creates a high sound.  A Yotar is a full-sized guitar with a full-sized sound.

(February 2006 update:  OK.  Check out Midnight Ukelele Disco and I take back all I said about tinny. Some interesting and some down-right bizzare uke music here.  But Jake is something else.  I think you will agree.)

Yohann Anderson, the creator of the Yotar (Yohann + guitar = Yotar) hit upon the idea of taking a 12-string guitar and reconfiguring the strings so that they mimicked the ukulele (the world's easiest to play stringed instrument), only with the size and 'presence' of a guitar.  A 12-string guitar is set up as six strings doubled.  The Yotar has four strings, tripled.  Take out the bottom (the pairs of bass E and A strings) from a 12 string guitar, triple the upper four sets (D, G, B, E) with octaves, and you have a Yotar.  With big fat (42-gauge or larger) bass strings, it has a sound no uke can hold a coconut palm to.  Ukuleles run away with great fear.  There is such a thing as a  4-string tenor guitar, but they sound like a ukulele going through puberty, and they cost the same (or more--much more--for a vintage model).

Yotar Stringing                                        Yotar Headstock

From the bridge, four sets of three strings.
             D        G         B        E
As I like to remember it...
"Dave's Guitar Bests Everybody"
I currently have my Yotar strung with these gauges:
D:  I      I      I            G:  I      I     I            B:   I     I      I              E:    I     I     I
     34  14   14         24  24  42             14  14   14              10  10  10

The two best parts about a Yotar are 1) the ease of chording, 2) the fact that every string is played on every strum.

1).  Chording.  The four-string set-up creates lots of one- and two-finger chords.  The learning curve is shorter and not nearly as steep as with a six string.  Two less strings, less fancy fingerplacements.  If you have ever played a bass guitar, the spacing of the strings is almost identical.  Admittedly, having some background on bass helped me.  But last weekend a person who had never picked up a guitar was playing a simple three-chord song in 10 minutes on the Yotar.  And, once you know the G chord (one finger) the C chord (2 fingers) and the D chord (three very easy  "make this triangle shape with them" fingers), you can play about 80 percent of songs worth playing and singing.  The Beatles, The Kingston Trio, John Denver and Peter, Paul and Mary made a living at it.

Guitar C                                                    Yotar C

Guitar D                                                     Yotar D

Guitar G                                                      Yotar G


As you can see (not so plainly, but hopefully you will get the point), the great advantage of the Yotar chording is the simplicity of it all.  Check out that G chord...one lonely finger on the bottom set of strings (E) at the third fret. If I can do it, anyone can do it.  (Thanks to my daughter Cayla for the demonstrations of guitar chording on her new Rogue cutaway 6-string.  She also says to add in Simon and Garfunkel to the list of simple music above.)

2.  Strumming.  The fact that the strings are the four highest pitches of a guitar (D,G, B, E) means the strings get played every time you strum.  With a six or 12-string, there are times you don't play certain bass strings.  Playing every string every strum makes life simple.  Up and down, up and down.  You never have to worry about playing or not playing a string. You play them all. 

And it sounds good.  I simply beat my Yotar like a wild man.  It's part drum and part guitar.  It's all about the rhythm. Yotars aren't for fancy fingerwork or fingerpicking, unless you are really into that sort of thing or really good at it (do I have to tell you that my friend David Fowler is really good at it?  Didn't think so.)

So what's a Yotar add to the musical arena?  Lead guitarists seem to like it.  I just beat out rhythm and they get fancy. People will sing because there is a rhythm and it cues them to the pitch of the melody.  Ain't fancy, but it gets the job done.  When those guitar players who have never seen one take their first look, they are somewhat amazed.  It is a different concept, but it does work.

"Me and my guitar, always in the same mood.  I am mostly flesh and bones...he is mostly wood..."  James Taylor, Me and My Guitar

My Yotar is now 14 years old.  It's the way to learn to play when you are 34 and desperate.  In less than a month, I felt pretty comfortable leading music.  Maybe too comfortable, but if you pick your spots right and people are in the mood to sing, it'll happen. Of course, the whole experience is improved by having the right resources for those you are going to drag into the music-making process.  I suggest the Tunebook from Songs and Creations.  It is the standard of all campfire sing-along books. 



Songs and Creations                                    You can click on the                      A website with a
PO Box 7                                                     'Great Music Everyone               Yotar description...
San Anselmo, CA  94960                              Can Play and Sing'                     from Yo himself...
1-800-227-2188                                          link on the front page                     scroll about 1/2 way
                                                                       for more information.                  through the page...

Where can you get a Yotar?  Same place.  Call Mary and ask for Yo.  Rather than covert a 12-string using a paring knife from the kitchen like the first Yotar was, the new ones are converted professionally by trained experts using a Swiss Army knife.  Nah, I made that up. I've visited the birthplace of my Yotar in beautiful downtown San Anselmo, CA.  I stooped at the manger to see where it first lay.  (They don't have a website. They just do music well.)

Both of my Yotars are exceptional instruments. (Both?  Oh yeah.  Don't put a cheap strap on a $400 instrument, but if you do, be sure you've scheduled the Yo on your homeowner's insurance.  When the neck cracked from the fall and no one could guarantee their repair would be satisfactory, I got a new one and bought the old one from salvage.  Gratefully, a wonderful luthier did a fantastic repair and I have hardly played my second Yotar.  Simply a word to the wise or otherwise:  insure against damage or loss.  Or else, it will be your loss.)

Who is playing a Yotar these days?  My friend Herb who is much more musical than I am, but is also blessed with size 18 double E hands and fingers.  He can play.  Jane, who wanted to play guitar forever but experienced the same frustration I did until she tried the Yotar and now she hosts a weekly sing-a-long at her church.  John, the state-wide camping director for a major denomination in Nebraska who has a top-of-the-line Guild but hardly ever plays it, but can if he needs to (and he needs to do it more often).

     
Me, Herb, 450 elementary kids and two Yotars who brought us together (circa 1996). 
"I know an old woman who swallowed a fly...I don't know why."

I've met someone who has limited fingering ability in his hand due to a birth defect who has been able to play because of the simplifed chords.  A few years ago Yohann had me stop by and do a demo with someone who was interested, and her next door neighbor was there. After a short time, the neighbor left and returned with two ukuleles, and the jam was on.  And, of course, my daughter, who can play just about anything she picks up, grabs the Yotar occasionally and plays it proficiently.

My Jasmine Yotar is a beauty.  It plays well with the solid top and the quality of the tuners.  It is a beautiful guitar.  I have had the frets dressed (all that pounding takes a toll) and the action lowered (which made a huge difference).  Remember that it is 14 years old and has been hauled to hundreds of campfires and nearly weekly to church for praise band, and I use a medium pick most of the time (.42mm), so the pickguard is scratched up.   It survived 5 years of school assemblies in a former life as an educational consultant.  You want young people to respond?  Use music.  The repair is visible, but has held strong thanks to London's Luthier in Lincoln, NE.

I've played around with some different gauges, but come back to pretty standard stuff recommended in the back of the Tunebook.  The great thing is that in a pinch, I can use many different gauges of strings, or even leave one off if I have two.  Typically, if I keep the strings fresh they don't break.  And a great source of strings is String This.  Strings can be purchased in bulk, and I tend to buy a couple dozen of the lighter strings in bulk from String This and pick up single strings in the 25-cent bin at any local music store.  I've spent thousands of dollars with Musician's Friend, and they are very good also.

So, you want to play guitar but don't have 1) the time, 2) the finger dexterity, 3) the patience to learn all that fancy stuff? The amazing overgrown ukulele is for you.  And remember that line about "cattle hooves"?  Well, here are four sets of horse hooves that CAN make music. (You will have to give them each a 'spurring' to get them to go...but well worth it."

Just say Yotar.

Sample tab

This Page was last update: Monday, January 8, 2007 at 8:04:21 AM
This page was originally posted: 4/24/05; 10:28:21 PM.
Copyright 2008 David Friedli

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