However because I am English. If you placed me in a difficult spot, and said.
"what is the true absolute tuning of the original Tenor Guitar".
I would offer this opinion, based upon my own personal experience, and limited knowledge of the Instrument and its history.
It is this.
In regard to a Tenor Guitar.
If the Instrument is a form of Guitar.
Then being germane to its origins, it would be tuned DGBE.
After all, it is a Tenor 'Guitar', and first created, by Notable Guitar Manufacturers.
It would be entirely to be expected for them to tune the Instrument originally, as if it were a form of Guitar.
I realise that this will put me completely at odds, with Internet self appointed experts, and I well understand anyone preferring their view.
I have no wish to change anybody minds, or argue I am right at all in any way, but rather to expand everyone's thoughts, knowledge and insight to deepen peoples understanding.
But this was the rationale for Manufacturers, Distributers, Dealers and Players in Europe, where the Banjo had not been a tour de force, but the Guitar dominated this field, and had done for Centuries in some form or another.Furthermore.
A close friend of mine.
Very big and very highly experienced in Music Publishing.
Who last week, just retired from the business after a lifetime in it.
Accords with my memory, that in the late fifties and early sixties if you bought a Tenor Guitar Tutor Book.
It would advise you, that the correct tuning for that Instrument, as you were learning from a Book written by Tenor Guitar experts, is as I have written above. As the top strings of a regular Guitar.
And lastly.
A friend of mine whose Family featured Mayors of Oxford twice, thus highly respected, owned a Large Music and Instrument Store for many Generations, (including being owned by the Mayors), with their experience in Musical Instruments going back to 1811, when the business started. Anyway my elderly friend bought a block of land to house the Music Store in 1933, so he went back a long way.
I once asked him (in the sixties) how you tuned a Tenor Guitar. Straight off he told me, exactly as you would tune a normal Guitar. I later read some published Manuals on the Tenor Guitar, I think published by Mel Bay, and the Books affirmed his assertion that the Tuning was as a regular Guitar. I remember both the conversation and reading in the Manual. It's worth reflecting on the fact that contempory with this, major American Manufacturers were marketing electric models, still utilising the Banjo Tuning, but mainly for the home market. A soon to die breed.
These three reasons.
Form the sound basis of my belief for this.
But I think it helps to have an overall appreciation.
Of the many closely related forces and dynamics that were at work.
American Bands commonly featured Banjo Players. In Europe the earlier forms of the Guitar had been historically the popular Instrument, certainly over the Banjo which although is thought by some to be related to early Guitar forms, is essentially a Stringed Drum created with and by 'Black Roots' and I expect this is at the bottom of any difference that exists in opinion.
The 'Black Roots' were far less a cultural influence throughout Europe during this period of history. So Instruments devised by such people were proportionately far less, and by and large crested with the take up of them by Music Hall Artists that ventured into the emerging Film Business.
When I was a youngster I would enact simple repairs to Banjos, Mandolin Banjo's Tenor Banjo's and all the multi-various derivatives. There's lots of them about in the U.K. at least that's how it seemed to me, probably because I attracted owners needing them fixed. But I suppose in relation to other Instruments, comparatively few.
Vellums made of Goat skins had to be fitted to them usually because the Instruments were Manufactured by small makers and had non-standard sized hoops and bodies. Real Vellums that were trimmed to fit were the only available option. The main difficulty being the unevenness of the skin across its whole with thicker and thinner areas.
My impression is, that Banjos and many of these "Crossover Instruments" like Tenors really Majored in America and spread across the Atlantic to Europe. The Guitar in some form or another, was already far better historically established in Europe and spread in the opposite direction. Almost all the greatest American Guitar Manufacturers were founded by European blood. Even though Americans commonly think of 'The Guitar' as an American Instrument. In fact, its history goes back to the Oud.
So it wouldn't surprise me at all in such a young country, to find a that an early American Tenor Guitar Tutor Book gave Tenor Banjo Tunings, although I have personally never seen one that did. But my essential point is I believe the Banjo Tuning for the Guitar was to help and facilitate Banjo Players in America.
The Banjo is essentially a Drum with Strings. If you have ever seen a 'Tuned Tambour' with side fasteners as a Drum and like a Tambourine without Jingles, but bigger like the Irish Tambours, or Bodhrans and the type of what is commonly called in some places, a Tambor Drum, African's use with its tied Strings acting as Flailing Beaters also known as Damassas from the Peruvian mountains or Tik-Tak from Bali.
So its possible to see how these things came together and emerged as a new Instrument taking parts of a number of influences, that emulate a new form of 'Guitar' using rudimentary materials and skills. All these cultural influences were present.
In Europe, where the Banjo didn't have the same background, the Guitar and its predecessors, dominated and thus Tunings for such a style of Instrument as the Tenor Guitar for the brief period in was in fashion if it ever really was at all here, would have naturally adopted a Guitar Tuning for it, because most Players played a "form of Guitar" and naturally would prefer to utilise the Tuning they were familiar with. Just as the Banjo Players had in America.
This is my rationale for the dichotomy. And in the complete absence of any other, the best explanation available to make the issues comprehendible. I'm not saying I am right, I simply believe this to be the best explanation. It comes after a lifetime, of observation, understanding the cycles of evolution in Musical Instrument Manufacturing.
The problem only comes, if and when 'Experts' and 'Avid Enthusiast's' insist that their viewpoint and understanding, obviously limited in character and nature, is the absolute truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the matter in hand.
As with most things in life, the real truth is much more complex than the simple matter we would prefer to tidily tuck away in our minds. And Internet derived knowledge, alone is not sufficient to the task, with the greatest possible respect.
For instance.
Elsewhere on PSW I believe they are discussing the various early types of audio cassette.
In fact modern cassettes were originally derived from Stenorettes, Dictating Tape Machines, as well as quality models from tape cassette formats such as RCA who also had a large audio cassette.
Grundig had a DC Cassette that was somewhat larger than the normal heavily marketed DCC Compact Cassette, so a major challenge for them then. Even Revox had one developed as well, I remember. For I held many of them in my hands.
As usual sales and marketing determined a winner mainly (in my view) because their Phillips cassette machine was cheaper to buy, and easier to operate, thus it became popular and established the format Pre-Recorded Cassettes would be launched on.
People think Gibson 175's must be the Jazz Guitar to buy, as they are so popular and you find lots of them around. But the truth is they were significantly cheaper than the alternatives of quality and so became popular.
Sales & Marketing are paramount in the equation of developing a successful Product.
We usually deride that fact to great cost to ourselves.
It is a Parallel Universe.
The Tenor Guitar was a cheaper, smaller, very convenient Instrument for many existing Banjo Players in American Bands during a time of great Global upheaval and transition.
All the best Manufacturers had their models, but improvements in sound and film would happily soon enable Prime Instruments to be brought to the fore, in new and powerful ways, particularly as louder, better projecting and better sounding Guitars evolved. Dynamically communicating and encouraging a profound consumer mass appeal.P