A bit of a mysterious
guitar that were made by Herman Weissenborn in the 1920's. A weissenborn is sort of like a Hawaiian lap guitar. These guitars are modeled after the Weissenborn occasionally. The Weissenborn has a wide and hollow neck, which allows greater
resonance than a normal
steel-string guitar. It has no
frets so it is played on the lap with a slide, much like the
steel guitar,
resonator guitar or
dobro.
Often the Weissenborn's are thought of as slightly magical. They have quite an amazing sound, for a guitar, but were made rather crudely. The insides of these guitars were not put together all too pretty. The structure's bracings would often vary greatly from guitar to guitar. Though there insides are less than perfect. A good Weissenborn sounds absolutely gorgeous.
To hear a Weissenborn
Ben Harper's album
Fight for Your Mind, first track, has a guitar duet of a steel string and a Weissenborn, the Weissenborn is the one that doesn't sound like a guitar. Also, not completely sure about this, but the movie
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the very opening has a Weissenborn in the bluesy opening song.