Alternate tunings

general questions, comments and ideas about recording, audio, music, etc.
thirdworldlover
studio intern
Posts: 29
Joined: Thu May 08, 2003 8:37 am
Location: gainesville

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by thirdworldlover » Fri Dec 17, 2004 10:14 am

Big fan of:

D A D F# A D

and its min7 cousin:

D A D F A C


If for no other reason than open harmonics positively sing on an open-tuned acoustic, and the scattered intervals between strings yield almost an entire scale.


example:

www.landingonland.com/witnessTheFitness/carlos.mp3


nd

User avatar
waitingroom
gimme a little kick & snare
Posts: 99
Joined: Mon May 17, 2004 5:29 pm

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by waitingroom » Fri Dec 17, 2004 10:37 am

and its min7 cousin:

D A D F A C

I just tried this out and like it very much! Thanks a lot.

JeffStrong
audio school
Posts: 8
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 12:32 pm
Location: LA, CA

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by JeffStrong » Fri Dec 17, 2004 10:52 am

C G D A E G. Fripp style. Fifths up until the 6th string. Allows for more violin-like/classical lines. I can't play alternate tunings for which there is no consistant interval between strings. Too much thinking for playing really fast.

User avatar
Rick Hunter
dead but not forgotten
Posts: 2022
Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 7:22 am
Location: El Granada, Ca
Contact:

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by Rick Hunter » Fri Dec 17, 2004 10:54 am

I like to tune the low E down to a really low C. Or just tune everything down a whole step.

thirdworldlover
studio intern
Posts: 29
Joined: Thu May 08, 2003 8:37 am
Location: gainesville

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by thirdworldlover » Fri Dec 17, 2004 11:24 am

Oh shit, one more:

C G D G B D


Kinda an open G/C. Helps to have bigass strings.



Anybody do any slide work on these?


nd

User avatar
nipsy
pushin' record
Posts: 273
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2004 10:47 pm
Location: the ubiquitous Portland

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by nipsy » Fri Dec 17, 2004 12:01 pm

i stumbled on to this last night


B B D# F# A# C#



awesome......

User avatar
nipsy
pushin' record
Posts: 273
Joined: Fri Feb 13, 2004 10:47 pm
Location: the ubiquitous Portland

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by nipsy » Fri Dec 17, 2004 12:05 pm

i meant to say i tune B's in octaves, E string being low B, A string an octave up.

Knights Who Say Neve
buyin' a studio
Posts: 985
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2004 6:27 pm
Location: The Mome Raths Outgrabe

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by Knights Who Say Neve » Fri Dec 17, 2004 12:22 pm

ubertar wrote:
salad49 wrote:
ubertar wrote:Right now I'm using E+20, A, D-20, G-40, B+40, E+20. The scale is 5 tone equal temperament. I like that scale because it sounds good melodically and harmonically. There are some really cool chords in 5 tet.
How do you dial in your tuning on a guitar? I have one of those sabine autotuners, you know, the one with the LEDs...do I need a different tuner?
You need a good chromatic tuner that gives you readings in cents. And new frets.
Great, where do I get a moveable fret guitar? Or are you just being a smartass?

User avatar
ubertar
ears didn't survive the freeze
Posts: 3775
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2004 7:20 pm
Location: mid-Atlantic US
Contact:

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by ubertar » Fri Dec 17, 2004 12:39 pm

salad49 wrote:Great, where do I get a moveable fret guitar? Or are you just being a smartass?
Not at all. You can make one. Either from scratch, like my students:

www.geocities.com/ubertar/kids

Or remove the frets from an existing guitar, fill in the cracks to make it fretless, then add the movable ones.

The moveable frets are like the frets on middle eastern instruments, like the turkish saz and the persian tar.

Image

Image

Knights Who Say Neve
buyin' a studio
Posts: 985
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2004 6:27 pm
Location: The Mome Raths Outgrabe

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by Knights Who Say Neve » Fri Dec 17, 2004 3:50 pm

That's really cool...could you talk a little more about attaching the frets? Are you using strips of metal and tying them into place, like a sitar?

User avatar
ubertar
ears didn't survive the freeze
Posts: 3775
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2004 7:20 pm
Location: mid-Atlantic US
Contact:

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by ubertar » Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:24 pm

salad49 wrote:That's really cool...could you talk a little more about attaching the frets? Are you using strips of metal and tying them into place, like a sitar?
It was not my intention to hijack this thread! I swear!
My apologies to the original poster.

No, they're more like the frets on the saz and tar (above). Traditionally, the frets are made of gut. I've used fishing wire before, with good results, but for some reason (different gauge? different type of fishing wire?) it hasn't worked out with the recent ones, so I've been using this heavy duty, heavily waxed thread which so far seems like it will work well. You need to make a groove on the top of the neck (what faces up when you're holding the guitar) that runs the length of the neck. That's for tying the knots. You wrap the string around the neck three or four times and pull it as tight as you can before tying the knot, then seal the knot with a drop of glue.

For my own guitars, I have permanent metal frets, but made a bunch of guitars set to different temperaments.

UXB
steve albini likes it
Posts: 353
Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2003 9:56 am

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by UXB » Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:25 pm

I don't believe I saw the Jimmy Page favorites mentioned, like

DADGAD (Kashmir)
or
DGCGCD (Rain Song)

These always seem to yield a song when I'm goofing around...

Best,
H

flatcat
alignin' 24-trk
Posts: 70
Joined: Thu Sep 11, 2003 7:08 am
Location: Westborough, MA

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by flatcat » Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:25 pm

David Crosby used EADGAD a lot. That's the one for Guinnevere and Deja Vu.

Sometimes I'll tune my guitar weird and play regular standard tuning chords, just to see what happens. You'll get really crazy stuff that way - like in EADGAD, if you play a standard G chord (muting the low A string) you get this kind-of crazy G7 chord.

Fun to shake it up.
"Please make everything louder than everything else."

User avatar
Flight Feathers
re-cappin' neve
Posts: 643
Joined: Fri May 02, 2003 11:53 am
Location: Maplewood NJ
Contact:

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by Flight Feathers » Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:36 pm

some of my favorites

DADGAD (the other standard?)
DADF#AD - open D
EADGCD - great for playing in C, try the Am and F with, awesome. great for playing 'Don't Fear the Reaper'
CGDGAD
CGCGAD
CGCGCD
CGCGBE
DGDGAD
5D Studios <-- my OLD studio
Flight Feathers <-- my band

PatrickBrown
pushin' record
Posts: 254
Joined: Wed May 14, 2003 12:23 pm
Location: in the bayou
Contact:

Re: Alternate tunings

Post by PatrickBrown » Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:36 pm

Oh cool, a Tar. One I don't have. I have a Saz,,two in fact,(baglama and cura) and it uses a re-entrant tuning, like a ukelele, viz., D, down to G, up to C(middle C), where the middle string is the low one. I tune my oud G, D, G, C, and the sarode, C, G, C, F, a fourth higher, same ratio, low to high. There's a couple of lower strings on the oud. No frets. It's too easy to use the sarode tuning on the oud, rather than the common(one of many) oud tunings. The Saz uses fishing line, very thin, wrapped about four times, with a special tie. for frets.

Good info here:

http://www.silverbushmusic.com/sarodtuning.html

Check around the site, that goes right to the sarode tuning page. There's good diagrams where it's easy to see how to do the fret tie for the saz in another part of the site.

I like drop D and DADGAD, as well as DADGAE, low to high, which if you fiddle or mando, you have the A, D, A, E which is a raised low string tuning on the fiddle(mando, irish banjo, etc.), good for D type picking, as long as you deal with the presence of the G string in the middle, skipping it, and using it, to taste.

Locked

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 30 guests