fter a couple of years with the 24-string Double Subcontraguitar and the 30-string Double Contraguitar, I knew just how much I loved both and how both came to be important instruments for me.  They were used on almost all my recording projects from the time of their arrival.  I had originally thought these two instruments would be tertiary voices, but they immediately established themselves as secondary voices.

Over the past few years, I'd changed the registers on my two Daniel Roberts contraguitars (C1 and C2) from contra E to subcontra C#.  C1 is always in an all-fifths tuning, and C2 has in recent years remained in an all-octaves tuning.  I wanted an instrument to combine both tunings in the C subcontra register.  Doing so would also enable a possible intervalic tuning to be used in concert with the all-5ths tuning.

I started using subcontra tunings in 2022. I find that they provide new textures, colors, and depth that are otherwise inaccessible. Tunings in these registers points me in new directions, and opens previously unknown territories. I greatly look forward to discovering and learning more about these directions and weaving this fabric into my approach.

In November 2023, I finished a design specification and mockups, and called Alistair Hay at Emerald Guitars in Ireland.  I explained what I had in mind, and sent him the design spec and mockups.  My design called for a combination of a 14-string and a 12-string doubleneck.   Alistair agreed to build it, and in January 2024, work began on the 26-string.  Finally, in April 2025, the work was complete, and the instrument arrived.

When I was designing the 26-string, I began to suspect that it would become my no.2 instrument, right behind the 36-string Double Contraguitar, which is my main instrument.  Now that I've had it for a month or so, I believe it is becoming my no. 2 instrument.  That said, it's also possible that I have more than one no. 2 instrument; if so, the other number twos are the 30-string Contra-Alto guitar, and the 24-string Double Subcontraguitar.

These blog posts detail some of the work I performed on the completed 26-string:

   26-string, part 1
   26-string, part 2
   26-string, part 3
   26-string, part 4

2025 is becoming a year full of recording projects, and the 26-string Double Subcontraguitar will certainly be a part of most, if not all, of them. 

- Kevin Kastning
  19 May 2025