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Post by billhammond on Apr 13, 2007 14:30:23 GMT -5
You are on. Name a couple of chords (explain how you have the notes arranged). I bet I can construct the same voiced chord in standard tuning. OK, but I will need a guitar in my lap, and you have to duplicate all pitches in the same sequence, right?
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Post by timfarney on Apr 13, 2007 14:32:17 GMT -5
I've never been a fan of alternative tunings simply because I understand how to construct chords and I know the fret board. For a while I thought that my interest were moving toward seven string instruments but I have, again, changed my position. As opposed to alternative tunings, and seven string instruments, please consider the baritone guitar -- all the advantages articulated above and sooooo much more flexible. This assumes that one would only use alternate tunings as a crutch. I'm not sure I know anyone who uses them that way, anyone who didn't know their way around standard tuning pretty well before they ever bothered to learn alternate tunings. Alternate tunings are about creating inversions and tones - in my crude use of them, mostly from drone strings - that cannot be reproduced in standard tuning. Tim
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2007 14:32:18 GMT -5
Yeah but David, you can get the same notes in a chord but in open/alternate tuning you have more open strings that ring out and create a really nice sonority that a closed voice chord can't get. Not that I am knocking standard tuning, cause that and drop D is all I play in but I get the reason for alternate tunings.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2007 14:38:02 GMT -5
Wren -- that is one on the strengths of standard tuning - the frequency of use of open strings.
Bill -- voice a chord (note construct a chord) and I can do the same chord in standard tuning. Your suggestion leaves me no alternative but to rely upon your chosen tuning. I can achieve a sounding as good, or better, than that achieved in an alternative tuning.
Tim -- WTF? I made no such assumption!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2007 14:53:01 GMT -5
You are on. Name a couple of chords (explain how you have the notes arranged). I bet I can construct the same voiced chord in standard tuning. Here's one, starting with the C below the lowest C you can play in standard tuning... CGEGCE El
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Post by theevan on Apr 13, 2007 14:55:20 GMT -5
I used drop D quite a bit. It is common in classical arrangements. "Drop F#" is common in rennaissence arrangements as well (G string dropped 1/2 step). I can deal with one string in altered tuning. My frustration with open tunings are the intonation issues. If the music is strictly modal you can correct for most of it, but if it's not some tunings will give you fits.
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Post by j on Apr 13, 2007 15:02:58 GMT -5
Reminds me of Pierre Bensusan being asked at a workshop if playing everything in DADGAD wasn't 'limited'
he threw a fit and replied (insert heavy french accent)
"Limited? I can play in ANY KEY!"
He then proceeded to pay scales, arpeggi and cadences up and down the neck shouting out keys as he went:
D minor! Eb major! Bb minor! F# major!
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Post by Tim Alexander (fmrly. Camalex) on Apr 13, 2007 15:16:26 GMT -5
So what can we say to the California Guitar Trio whose "standard tuning" is CGDAED (I think) -- tuned in 5ths until the final interval (2nd). Standard tuning accomplishes many things well but that's not the same as doing "all things well." All three of these players flatpick classical pieces in this alternative tuning! wow!
Switching to a new tuning (even if it's only a one string change) forces you to rethink the fretboard and re-explore the ways you play chords, scales, etc. It makes you a better arranger and better musician -- heck you're leaning a new instrument! You've got to be a better musician.
As far as I am concerned if you like to play the guitar as a piano (solo instrumental - flatpick or fingerstyle) you are almost compelled to think about tunings beyond AND including standard tuning. Otherwise you're limiting yourself to only the sounds found in standard.
And if you have limited your playing to the sounds available through standard tuning, you can't judge the value alternative tunings -- just like you can't judge the relative value of tuning a mandolin in 5ths instead of 4ths.
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Post by timfarney on Apr 13, 2007 15:37:42 GMT -5
Tim -- WTF? I made no such assumption! Perhaps I read too much into it... ...I took that to mean that one would choose to use alternate tunings because they didn't understand how to construct chords, and/or didn't know the fretboard. Sorry if I assumed too much. Regardless, the fact is, I can come up with inversions of D all over the fretboard, but none of them sound like this one in double drop D: 000770. It's not necessarily better than any other inversion I can get in standard tuning, but it's different, and it's useful. And so are a lot of other things in alternate tunings. MHO. YMMV. Tim PS: To borrow El's argument, the above chord is rooted in a D below the lowest D available on a guitar in standard tuning, so recreating the notes, much less the sound of all of those open strings against the two high-fretted ones, is impossible in standard. You may not consider it necessary to play such a chord, but that's a completely different subject than the one at hand.
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Apr 13, 2007 16:36:30 GMT -5
Cribbs, after you tune down the bass E string to D, check it against the 3rd string (D). They should sound the same only an octave apart. ANd it can be fun to imitate Wes sounds, sliding around on just the two D strings. Mike
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2007 17:14:47 GMT -5
El -- are you kidding? Okay -- use a baritone guitar using standard tuning intervals. Your lowest C is 6th string first fret. You can work the rest out. Point is that it can be done.
Camalax makes a singularly wonderful point about limitations. Now while I acknowledge that one can acquire sounds not commonly heard in an acoustic guitar in standard tuning, I posit that one can acquire a uniquely flexible sonic palate by eschewing the acoustic instrument and embrace the elegance of the electric rig. Its within that platform that I find the most creative freedom. We can start with the ease with which the instrument can be played - a value that cannot be underestimated.
More interesting than voicings, IMHO, are the timbres in which one may revel with the electric format. THAT will take you to new worlds if you open your mind and heart.
Tim-- you, too, make an interesting observation about that one chord formation. I concede that in the right place, it would work like nothing else. I assert that its usefulness is limited. I furhter assert that one can achieve the same goal without the limitation of the alternate tuning by creative use of timbres and a baritone instrument.
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Post by billhammond on Apr 13, 2007 17:47:53 GMT -5
El -- are you kidding? Okay -- use a baritone guitar using standard tuning intervals. Your lowest C is 6th string first fret. You can work the rest out. Point is that it can be done. Camalax makes a singularly wonderful point about limitations. Now while I acknowledge that one can acquire sounds not commonly heard in an acoustic guitar in standard tuning, I posit that one can acquire a uniquely flexible sonic palate by eschewing the acoustic instrument and embrace the elegance of the electric rig. Its within that platform that I find the most creative freedom. We can start with the ease with which the instrument can be played - a value that cannot be underestimated. More interesting than voicings, IMHO, are the timbres in which one may revel with the electric format. THAT will take you to new worlds if you open your mind and heart. Tim-- you, too, make an interesting observation about that one chord formation. I concede that in the right place, it would work like nothing else. I assert that its usefulness is limited. I furhter assert that one can achieve the same goal without the limitation of the alternate tuning by creative use of timbres and a baritone instrument. But we like to play only one instrument, a regular non-baritone instrument, and each tuning gives you a little different platform from which to explore exotic suspensions, sympathetic strings, etc. Sometimes, GASP, we find things by accident that we would never find nor conceive of in standard tuning.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2007 17:50:55 GMT -5
Bill -- <instrument>
Acknowleged. So tune your whole guitar down a fourth *GASP*
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Post by billhammond on Apr 13, 2007 17:55:30 GMT -5
Bill -- <instrument> Acknowleged. So tune your whole guitar down a fourth *GASP* I have a better idea. Why don't you play in standard tuning and use a baritone as you see fit and play everything under the sun in your preferred way? And those of us who like to use different tunings, however misaligned our justifications might be, can use them in our preferred way! I promise not to make fun of you for eight-fret stretches if you promise not to make fun of me for retuning between sets.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2007 17:59:07 GMT -5
Deal Bill!
You know how everybody just LOVES when the guitar player spends more time getting in tune than playing...
...this discusion on alternative tunings reminds me of a joke..
A man was sitting at a bar enjoying an after-work cocktail when an exceptionally gorgeous and sexy young woman entered. She was so striking that the man could not take his eyes away from her.The young woman noticed his overly-attentive stare and walked directly toward him.
Before he could offer his apologies for being so rude, the young woman said to him, "I'll do anything, absolutely anything, that you want me to do, no matter how kinky, for $100 on one condition."
Flabbergasted, the man asked what the condition was. The young woman replied, "You have to tell me what you want me to do in just three words."
The man considered her proposition for a moment, withdrew his wallet from his pocket and slowly counted out five $20 bills, which he pressed into the young woman's hand.
He looked into her eyes and slowly, meaningfully said, "Paint my house."
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Post by Cornflake on Apr 13, 2007 18:17:40 GMT -5
Interesting. I play fairly often with a partial capo, placed at the second fret on strings 3-5. I think I play the same chord that Tim mentions but I don't have a guitar here to check.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2007 18:21:35 GMT -5
Don --
I am very partial to partial capo techniques. Good for you! Its limited as to placement, of course, but its very useful.
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Post by Cornflake on Apr 13, 2007 18:36:52 GMT -5
Some people don't like them, David, but I do. I like the fact that you can put one on during a performance and get a different sound (DADGAD-y) without retuning.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2007 18:42:47 GMT -5
Don -- Yup! Your point on retuning is spot on IMHO!
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Post by John B on Apr 13, 2007 19:14:12 GMT -5
A downside to alternate tunings is best described by Steve Baughman: ************************* The open tuning has been both a blessing and a scourge upon the guitar world. Anyone who has tinkered with alternate tunings knows the excitement of discovering the universe of possibilities that exists only beyond the standard formulation. But as more and more players venture beyond EADGBE, and as they record their discoveries, it becomes apparent that a grave danger accompanies the seductive lure of the open tuned guitar.
As scores of fingerstyle albums on the market confirm, the utter ease with which pleasing sounds spring forth from open tunings all too often acts as a substitute for creativity. Suddenly composing is easy. Put your guitar in a funny tuning and let your fingers do the walking, randomly. When you find a riff you like, write it down. When you've discovered five or six, string them together and come up with a name. Lo and behold, you've got a "composition."
The Yellow Pages method of guitar composition, all the rage since the open tuning explosion, turns the creative process on its head. Now the fingers, not the soul, create the music. By making available a selection of easily discoverable licks, the open tuning permits, even tempts the unwary, or lazy composer to substitute a mechanical process of riff hunting for what was once a creative endeavor. The tuning and a game of "hunt and peck" dictate the form and flavor of the composition. The guitar assumes the role of a one-armed bandit that if manipulated enough will produce a pleasing jingle. And like the slot machine, the open tuning eventually produces that pleasing jingle even if the player's brain is fully disengaged throughout the process.
With its reliance on digital search, the Yellow Pages method produces note patterns that the artist has discovered, not music that the artist has created. The distinction is not an academic one. Indeed, it explains precisely why so many open tuning compositions are entirely devoid of emotion. With riff hunting, the instrument is no longer the bridge between the listener and the artist's musical spirit. It is no longer the tool giving voice to the music within. Instead, the guitar is reduced to a stage upon which the player displays his digital discoveries. For the listener, the nourishing connection between himself and the guitarist is lost, replaced by finger food.
A parallel to poetry readings is helpful. A poet who discovers a clever rhyme may entertain, even amaze, but he will not move an audience. Likewise the guitarist who lets his fingers do the walking. ************************* Also, as J pointed out, to get the most benefit out of the tuning, you have to figure out all of the ins and outs - scales, chords in positions other than the most obvious (e.g., figuring out a way other than a barre at the 7th fret to play a D chord in open G). Martin Simpson reinforced this in three different tunings (similar to Pierre Bensusan).
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