  This work is devoted to the discussion and characterization of the tensor
$2^{-(-)}$ meson spectrum, by making use of the Coulomb gauge Hamiltonian
approach to QCD, with the interactions being given by an improved confining
potential and a transverse hyperfine interaction, whose kernel is a Yukawa-type
potential. Our aim is to study the basic features of $2^{-(-)}$ mesons within
an unified framework through the whole range of quark masses. We concentrate
our investigation on predictions of expected but yet-unobserved ground states
of unflavored light mesons and on charmonium and bottomonium states. The
numerical results are compared with existing literature.
