Alternate tunings

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Permalink Reply by Ship of fools on January 21, 2009 at 8:57am

Hi Jonathan, well after playing for over 40 years I have just started to play with open tunings, I have used some in the past but have almost always played with open tunings. Until I recently got bored to death of playing the same things over and over and the peotition of the same songs was driving me nuts to say the least and needed new insiration to move forward ( how many time can one play Stairway to Heaven ) to many, so I started to recently get re-interested in older bluegrass or mountain music as I believe it was once called. So I have recently started with open G tuning which I bought a new guitar for so I can leave it in open G with out having to retune one of the other guitars and it has been a challenge to say the least, not a lot of bluegrasss players in my area that I have found yet, but it is a ton of fun learning something new and I am enjoying switching my style of playing, hope more pop in with some ideas as to what else we can all do to become better pickers and I love the way it fills in the music.Ship

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Williams on January 21, 2009 at 10:51am

There is a group created by my friend Travis Steel Nevels called "Alternate Tunings" and one of the discussion topics is "Your Favorite Alternate Tunings"

My favorite Alternate Tuning is Open C
ALSO:
I have a FREE ONLINE GUITAR TUNER on my website for my friends and website visitors.
Jeff Williams
www.jeffwilliams-usa.com

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Permalink Reply by Dan Burr on January 24, 2009 at 5:14am

I keep one guitar tuned in alternate tunings, usually DADGAD, theen will change as needed to a new tuning and keep it there until I've learned the song well enough to move on. My goal is to have at least one song readily available to play in a few of the major alternate tunings: DADGAD, Open G, Open D, or in an odd tuning because I like the song!! I play around with Drop-D a lot, but will use one of my guitars in standard tuning for that. I also love experimenting in each of the tunings, learning the fretboard while creating some song of my own.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff on January 24, 2009 at 8:43am

DADGAD is a very simple tuning to get the hang of. So is Open D (DADF#AD). I love composing in Open Gminor (DGDGBbD) just because it has such a solid minor key sound when it is open and really has a strong feeling to it.

Other than that, I try to stay away from a lot of other tunings that require me to tune the low E down to a C, or even a B for that matter... the E loses too much tension and it is just worthless to try and play.

Haven't really found a use for double drop D yet... though I haven't experimented too much with it.

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Permalink Reply by Peter Montanti, Architectural Photographer on February 25, 2009 at 10:03am

I use dadgad often, especially on a 12 string. I also like to use a capo on the 4 high sets of strings in dadgad, leaving the 2 lower sets open. I'll do this mostly at the 4th, 5th and 7th frets. Its very good for imrovisational noodling.

Peter

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