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Alternate Tunings

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Started by Dennis in Musicians (Gear, Tabs & Lyrics)

Anyone got advice for a stuck-in-his ways guitarist on how to finally get to grips with alternate tunings?!

I mean, the almost ubiquitous Drop D is pretty straight-forward, but how about open tunings?

This has all been brought about by me reading a Johnny Marr biography and remembering that I can hardly play any of his work cos I have no idea a) what the tunings are (and he did use some weird tunings) and b) how to make chord shapes in those tunings…it’s like learning the instrument from scratch all over again.

Posted on Wed, 4 July 2007 at 11:56

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#1

Auto_Surgery (Mad Axe Man) wrote:

Tune down a step, or a half a step

Slide Guitar, Open G etc

Posted on Wed, 4 July 2007 at 13:08

#2

caustic feed wrote:

Title: Tunings

C F Bb Eb G C.

:D

Posted on Wed, 4 July 2007 at 20:54

#3

Dennis wrote:

It isn’t so much the actual tunings themselves that are the problem - it is how to form chords in them!

Anyone know of a decent instructional book/ DVD on this?

Posted on Fri, 6 July 2007 at 11:20

#4

Misanthropologist (d) wrote:

I don’t use alternate tunings myself, but to be honest I think the idea (unless you’re just tuning each string down by the same amount) is to get a bit of lateral thinking into your playing. If you need tuition books to help you with that, then it’s probably not worth bothering with. I’m not having a go at you or anything, though. I’m just saying.
I mean, if you tuned to, say, open E, then to play a Major chord you’d just barre one finger across all the frets. You get E, F, F# etc that way. Then you use that basis to get the more complicated chrods by adding the notes that you need. Which is what I mean, that you need to have a good idea of what notes you want to add in the first place. So it’s more music theory that you’re after, rather than a book about tunings.

The other use for alternate tunings is just to get different voicings for the same old progressions, but again, to get the most out of it, I really think it’s about the theory. Learn the actual notes rather than any easy patterns, basically.
At least, that’s the way I see it, but as I said I don’t use them myself.

Posted on Fri, 6 July 2007 at 11:56

#5

Misanthropologist (d) wrote:

Forgot to say:
The other use for alternate tunings is when you’re playing a particular song, and find that there’s a particular chord that’s just too difficult to get to. Then, you just adjust the tuning to make that particular song easier. But that’s more a mater of common sense.

Posted on Fri, 6 July 2007 at 11:59

#6

Dennis wrote:

Misanthropologist wrote:

I think the idea is to get a bit of lateral thinking into your playing.
I mean, if you tuned to, say, open E, then to play a Major chord you’d just barre one finger across all the frets. You get E, F, F# etc that way. Then you use that basis to get the more complicated chrods by adding the notes that you need. Which is what I mean, that you need to have a good idea of what notes you want to add in the first place. So it’s more music theory that you’re after, rather than a book about tunings.

Yeah, I see what you’re saying, and I do kind of agree, but at the moment I am not looking at writing my own stuff, I just wanna work out how the fook to play Johnny Marr’s stuff!

Still, thanks for the advice, appreciated.

Posted on Fri, 6 July 2007 at 14:35

#7

Charlie (The Monsters Of Muskeg) wrote:

Every Breath you take is easier if you tune the D to E :D

Posted on Sun, 8 July 2007 at 16:30

#8

Divers (Simon) wrote:

Buy the Soundgarden Superunknown tab book… if you get your head round those tunings then you will be cool ;)

Some really strange ones to an extent musically they don’t really make much sense but they sound great.

I don’t really use them myself.

Posted on Mon, 9 July 2007 at 05:25

#9

Misanthropologist (d) wrote:

Dennis wrote:

Yeah, I see what you’re saying, and I do kind of agree, but at the moment I am not looking at writing my own stuff, I just wanna work out how the fook to play Johnny Marr’s stuff!

Still, thanks for the advice, appreciated.

Oh, sorry. I just assumed you had a creative side of your own. :p (No problem ;) )

Posted on Tue, 10 July 2007 at 10:48

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