How To Repair A Bridge Belly On Acoustic Guitar
eleven alternate tunings every guitarist should know
Standard guitar tuning, in which the strings are tuned, depression to high, to East A D Thou B E, has been extensively explored and mined for riffs, licks and chord voicings by generations of guitarists.
While its familiarity is beneficial, in terms of the numerous fretboard shapes and patterns you've invested so much time in learning, that can sometimes work against you, every bit it tin can exist a creative challenge to not keep playing all those same ingrained chords and licks from habit.
In this lesson, I'll nowadays a broad overview of eleven alternate tunings that famous guitarists have employed to great effect in some of their nigh well-known and historic recordings, which can serve as inspiration for your own playing and songwriting endeavors.
Guitar tuning essentials
A few words near tuning in general: always apply an electronic guitar tuner for any foray into an alternate tuning (and for getting back to standard tuning), only beginning make an effort to tune past ear, tuning the strings to each other using reference pitches, which may be fretted notes, open up strings or any available natural harmonics at the 12th, 7th or fifth frets. (Don't utilize 4th-fret harmonics, as they're slightly flat.)
Try to do this quickly and efficiently and zip-in on the precise target pitch earlier both notes die out. (Recall of tuning by ear as playing golf and ever try to get a "hole in one.")
After you lot've made your best effort at tuning your strings by ear, use your electronic tuner to verify the accuracy of the results and to fine-melody equally needed. Oft, strings you haven't even touched 'drift' slightly precipitous or apartment, due to the changing overall tension and pull on the neck that results from other strings being tightened or loosened. This upshot is more common and acute with an electric guitar, with its less massive and thus more flexible neck joint, compared to that of an acoustic.
A unison - a note doubled in the same octave - is the easiest reference pitch to tune to by ear, but an octave, perfect fifth or perfect fourth may also serve this purpose, if you're experienced enough to know what to listen for.
Existence able to tune past ear is a critical listening skill and an important part of your development equally a guitarist and musician, and making an effort to do this on a daily footing is a very benign, ongoing exercise in ear preparation. Merely, once more, like an auditor using a calculator, e'er finish the job with an electronic tuner, as playing out of tune is completely unacceptable to a listener in any situation, no matter how coincidental!
1. Drop D
This is the most widely used alternate tuning in many styles of popular music, particularly rock and metal, and it's certainly the most convenient to become into from standard tuning. Simply tune your depression E string down one whole step (the equivalent of two frets) to D, so that it matches the pitch of your open fourth string, or 'middle D', one octave lower (Figure i).
I observe that the fastest and easiest way to melody to drop D is to sound the natural harmonic at the sixth cord's 12th-fret and tune it down to lucifer the pitch of the open 4th string in unison. Zippo-in on the pitch match past carefully listening for a gradual slowing of the "beating," or pulsating, sound until it stops, or becomes imperceptibly tiresome.
Drop-D tuning offers a deep, pleasingly resonant sound for riffs congenital around a commencement-position D chord, using all half dozen strings, and too makes for a compact, movable root-5th-octave power chord shape, formed with a single finger, typically the index, barred across the bottom three strings, which provides a perfect foundation for 'stacking' a diverseness of 'taller' and more harmonically sophisticated chord voicings upon the basic power chord, a few of which are illustrated in FIGURE 2.
Well-known examples of songs that make great use of driblet-D tuning include Everlong by the Foo Fighters, the Beatles' Beloved Prudence, Spoonman and Blackness Hole Sun past Soundgarden, Tool'southward Aenima, Them Bones and Dam that River by Alice in Chains and Nirvana's All Apologies, the latter three songs all being in drop-D tuning transposed down 1 half step (low to high, Db Ab Db Gb Bb Eb).
2. Double drop D
Used famously past Led Zeppelin'due south Jimmy Folio in Going to California, Neil Young in Cinnamon Daughter, Robbie Krieger in the Doors archetype, The Cease (pitch-shifted approximately 50 cents, or a quarter-tone, flat) and Puddle of Mudd's Wes Scantlin in Drift and Die, double drop-D tuning is, as its proper name suggests, like regular drib D, only additionally has the high Eastward cord tuned down to D (see Figure iii).
A convenient way to get a reference D pitch to tune your high Due east string downward is to sound the D natural harmonic on your quaternary string's 12th fret. Merely if you detect that tuning a regular note to a harmonic like this is too difficult to hear and estimate due to the divergence in tone, you can instead apply the D note on your B string'southward third fret every bit a reference pitch. You'll simply need to pick and hold both that note and the open loftier E note, and then reach over to tune the latter downward to D with your pick hand.
With 3 open D strings - depression, middle and loftier - this tuning is great for crafting drone-y riffs and accompaniments in D major or D small and presents opportunities to easily finger lush-sounding chord voicings, similar those shown in FIGURE 4.
And having your center iv strings yet tuned normally can be a big plus as well when information technology comes to embellishing a chord shape with "extensions" or playing melodic riffs using familiar shapes.
3. DADGAD
A widely used tuning amongst masters of fingerstyle acoustic guitar, such as Pierre Bensusan, Phil Keaggy, Martin Simpson and Mike Dawes, DADGAD takes double driblet-D a step further, by additionally lowering the guitar'southward B cord a whole step, to A (meet Effigy 5).
The result is an ethereal and unresolved-sounding Dsus4 chord, with three open D notes in different octaves, two As and a G, the latter of which guitarists often use as their main melody-playing string in this tuning, with the other strings often serving every bit open-string drones and user-friendly same-fret octave shapes.
Probably the most historic example of a vocal in DADGAD tuning is the Led Zeppelin classic Kashmir, in which Jimmy Page made brilliant apply of open strings in conjunction with shifting 2-note fretted shapes, especially during the song's signature descending sus4-3 chord riff heard between the verses, for which he simply moved alternating two-finger shapes down the fretboard to lower positions while incorporating ringing open strings equally mutual tones in each voicing, as shown in Effigy 6.
Page had previously used DADGAD tuning for White Summertime (with the Yardbirds) and Blackness Mountain Side, the latter transposed down a half step (low to high, Db Ab Db Gb Ab Db).
Another well-known song performed in DADGAD tuning, in this case with a capo at the 3rd fret, is the Soggy Bottom Boys' arrangement of I Am a Human being of Constant Sorrow, which was featured prominently in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou? And fans of the television set series Sons of Anarchy are well familiar with the show's opening theme song, This Life, which features swampy guitar parts crafted by Velvet Revolver guitarist Dave Kushner and performed by Curtis Stigers & the Forest Rangers in DADGAD tuning, with a capo at the fourth fret.
4. Open D
Lowering the open 1000 cord, the sus4, from DADGAD tuning, by a half step, to F#, results in a deep-and warm-sounding open up D major chord and tuning, voiced, low to loftier, D A D F# A D, or root, fifth, root, major third, 5th, root (run into FIGURE 7).
Due to the strings' relaxed tension and signature interval stack - a root-fifth-octave power chord on the bottom three strings and a start-inversion major triad (iii-five-ane) on the meridian three - open-D tuning is ideal for playing slide on acoustic guitar, with its thick, tight strings. This was one of dejection legend Elmore James' favorite tunings, which he used famously on Dust My Broom and other songs.
The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards employed open up D tuning in a non-slide context on the original studio version of Street Fighting Human being, disallowment his index finger beyond all six strings to create a movable major barre chord shape, which he and so embellished harmonically and melodically with two-finger 'extensions' to create rich-sounding major add9 and sus2-4 voicings, like those illustrated in Effigy 8.
Nearly iii decades afterward, Jerry Cantrell employed open D tuning, transposed down a half step (low to high, Db Ab Db F Ab Db) rather resourcefully in the Alice in Bondage song Over Now, similarly employing his fret-hand index finger to form shifting total major barre chords across all six strings, to which he then added unmarried-annotation embellishments, on 1 string at a fourth dimension, with his other available fingers.
5. Open East
One time solidbody electric guitars, with their slinkier strings, became popular in the mid twentieth century, many great slide players, such as Duane Allman and Derek Trucks, adopted open E tuning - low to loftier, E B East G# B E - every bit their principal tuning for slide playing. (Trucks plays in open Due east pretty much exclusively, fifty-fifty when not using a slide.)
Open E tuning has the aforementioned signature interval stack as open D, but a whole footstep higher, every bit if you lot placed a capo at the second fret in open D tuning, and its open up strings give you what would commonly be a first-position E chord in standard tuning, equally shown in Figure 9.
Open up East tuning feels tighter than open D, which increases the pull on the neck, causing it to bow more than than it would in open D tuning, or even standard tuning, and you run a college risk of breaking a string in open E tuning, especially on an acoustic guitar.
Despite these potentially problematical issues, open E tuning has also been explored and exploited past acoustic players in such folk and stone classics as Footling Martha by the Allman Brothers Band (both Duane Allman'southward and Dickey Betts' guitars were tuned to open Due east for this acoustic duet), Jumpin' Jack Flash by the Rolling Stones and She Talks to Angels by the Black Crowes.
And vocalizer David Lee Roth wrote and played the acoustic guitar intro to the Van Halen song Ice Foam Human in open Eastward tuning, transposed down a half-pace (low to loftier, Eb Ab Eb 1000 Bb Eb).
Effigy ten shows a few particularly squeamish chord voicings in open up E.
half-dozen. Open Chiliad
Some other popular altered tuning among acoustic and electric guitarists, for both its highly-seasoned audio and relaxed feel, in terms of string tension, is open Chiliad: low to loftier, D G D G B D (run across Effigy 11).
Keith Richards wrote the riffs to some of the Rolling Stones' most dear and enduring songs in this tuning, such as Honky Tonk Women, Brown Sugar, Tin't You Hear Me Knockin', Beginning Me Upwardly and Tumbling Dice, the latter performed with a capo at the fourth fret.
Jimmy Page put open G tuning to great use in Dancing Days, That's the Way and Bron-Y-Aur Stomp, the latter two on acoustic guitar, transposed, respectively, downwardly a half-step - depression to high, Db Gb Db Gb Bb Db - and a whole step, to what may alternatively be thought of every bit open up F (low to loftier, C F C F A C). The Black Crowes' Rich Robinson employed open G tuning, down a half stride, on Jealous Again to craft the song's catchy, rocking and very Stones-similar electric guitar riffs.
Similar open D and open Due east tuning, open up G offers a pleasing major-chord note stack across all six strings at any given fret, with a triad on the peak three strings that besides makes it great for both slide playing and chord riffing with notes added to the index-finger barre by the other fingers.
But open G has a distinctly different character than open D or East, due to its different voicing structure, with a depression-to-high intervallic spelling of 5th, root, fifth, root, third, fifth. This gives you a root-position major triad - one-3-5 - beyond the top three strings and the 5th of the chord on the bottom, beneath the fifth-cord root annotation.
Interestingly, Richards opted long ago to remove the sixth string from his open G-tuned Fender Telecaster and play his riffs on merely five strings, with the everyman 1, now the fifth string, tuned to G, always giving him the root notation of the chord he'due south playing, which allows him to strut and trip the light fantastic toe effectually on stage and perform his riffs live with almost reckless abandon, without e'er having to worry about inadvertently sounding any unwanted sub-root notes.
FIGURE 12 illustrates a few prissy chord moves in open G tuning.
vii. Open A
Open A tuning (low to high, Due east A E A C# E) is to open up G what open E tuning is to open D - the aforementioned matter a whole footstep higher and, similarly, for many players, its electric-guitar analogue (FIGURE thirteen).
With the strings unfretted, open A tuning gives you lot a voicing identical to a start-position A chord in standard tuning, with the D, G and B strings all raised a whole pace to E, A and C#, respectively.
Delta blues legend Robert Johnson played in open A tuning often, on songs like Cross Road Blues, Traveling Riverside Blues and Come on in My Kitchen, although, since some of his recordings were sped up in the mastering process (intentionally or not), his guitar may accept actually been tuned down a half step on some of these songs, to open A flat (depression to high, Eb Ab Eb Ab C Eb) or a whole step, to open up M.
Many other blues masters take fabricated great apply of open A tuning on electric guitar in several of their songs, for both their slide playing and non-slide fingerpicked riffs. Well-known examples include John Lee Hooker's Boogie Chillen and Johnny Winter's Mean Town Blues.
Jimmy Page employed open A (in this example, with a tedious phase-shifting effect) for his swampy slide-guitar tour de force, Led Zeppelin's In My Fourth dimension of Dying, every bit did Jack White on the White Stripes hit Seven Nation Ground forces, which, interestingly, is in the key of E minor, not A major.
viii. DGC-GCD (The Rain Song tuning)
Similar DADGAD, this is an enigmatic-sounding tuning that has an unresolved quality to it, in this instance giving you what may exist thought of equally a Csus2/D (Csus2 over D) chord (FIGURE xiv).
I tin can only think of one famous song that uses this unusual tuning, only information technology'south a masterpiece that's definitely worth learning if you're an altered-tuning enthusiast and adventurous songwriter/composer, The Rain Song by Led Zeppelin.
Figure 15 illustrates a few of the shimmering chord voicings Page employs in this song. Note the liberal apply of open-sting drones, unisons, octaves and parallel movable shapes.
9. Open C6
Some other tuning that Jimmy Folio made brilliant utilize of is open C6 (depression to high, C A C Grand C Eastward), for which the A, 1000 and high Eastward strings are all tuned unremarkably, the depression Eastward and D strings both drop down to C and the B string goes up to C, as shown in Figure 16.
The guitarist employed this tuning on two acoustic Led Zeppelin classics, Friends and Bron-Yr-Aur (both recorded during the Led Zeppelin Three sessions).
In Friends, Page took advantage of the familiar two-finger strummed octave shape on the A and G strings to play stand-out melodies up and downward the fretboard in conjunction with the 3 ringing open C strings, like to Effigy 17.
More than recently, Marcus Mumford employed open up C6 tuning on 2 of his ring Mumford & Sons' biggest hits, I Volition Expect and Petty Lion Man, the latter vocal performed with a capo at the fifth fret.
ten. Open C (Chris Cornell tuning)
Our adjacent tuning is one employed by the late, cracking singer-songwriter and guitarist Chris Cornell for two of Soundgarden's biggest hits, Brunt in My Hand and Pretty Noose.
Information technology's a variation on open C tuning (low to high, C K C G C E), for which the B cord, instead of being tuned up to C, is instead tuned down to G, in unison with the G cord, every bit shown in Figure 18. This unison doubling makes notes played together on those two strings at the aforementioned fret, or open, really stand out.
FIGURE 19 illustrates a few of the unique chord voicings Cornell employed with this tuning in Burden, some of which he also used in Pretty Noose.
11. EEEEBE tuning
The 11th tuning is unusual but worth checking out. It'south what'southward often referred to as Bruce Palmer modal tuning, named after its inventor, the tardily Buffalo Springfield bassist Bruce Palmer, who was also a talented guitarist.
With this tuning, the low E, high Due east and B strings are tuned unremarkably. The A string then goes downwardly to match the low East, the D string goes upward to E, and the Chiliad string goes down to E, in unison with the "heart E" string. The result is a drone-y, mystical-sounding E5 chord (FIGURE xx).
Stephen Stills employed this tuning to great issue to craft his sitar-like acoustic guitar parts in the classic Crosby, Stills & Nash vocal Suite: Judy Bluish Eyes, too as those in 4+20 and Comport On with Crosby, Notwithstanding, Nash & Immature.
In Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, Stills used his usually tuned B and high East strings as his main melody-playing strings, with the bottom four strings employed primarily every bit accompanying unison and octave drones, as in Figure 21.
Interestingly, Stills employed this same tuning scheme, transposed downward 2 whole steps (!), in Beloved the One You're With, with his acoustic guitar tuned, very unusually, to C C C C G C, low to high. (You'll desire to employ thick strings for this tuning.)
Hopefully, this list of contradistinct tunings and the artists and song examples cited above have given you lot some useful points of reference and creative inspiration to experiment with twisting your guitar's tuning pegs to these nonstandard settings.
There are, however, many more altered tunings than these 11 that countless world-renowned guitarist-vocalist-songwriters take employed, including some used in well-known songs by artists like Joni Mitchell, John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls, Coldplay's Chris Martin and Cracking Pumpkins mastermind Billy Corgan.
When experimenting with altered tunings and searching for new sounds, a good arroyo is to driblet or heighten whatever one or ii strings and listen to what happens when you go to play familiar chord shapes. You may encounter some awful sounds along the way, but you lot're but equally likely to find a few gorgeous, regal chord voicings that could spark the writing of a fresh-sounding original song.
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Source: https://www.guitarworld.com/lessons/11-alternate-tunings-every-guitarist-should-know
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