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Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:14 pm
by Zounds Perspex
nuclearfamily wrote:I always messed around with alternate tunings... until I saw Lee Ranaldo play at a music festival last year. Now I almost exclusively use alternate tunings and some open tunings. Personally I find limiting yourself to standard tuning to be very limiting. I love inventing new chords and finding new combinations everytime I pick up my guitar. I find standard to sound kind of ugly now. Anyways these are a few of my favorites:
FACFCF
G#G#G#BbCC
DGDGBbD
CGCFAB
EBEEBE
F#AEG#C#B
Also has anyone tried Lou Reeds ostrich tuning? Having all the strings tuned the same would be kind of cool but I don't want to go through all the effort of put six A strings on my guitar.
Lee is the raddest. I'm working towards ripping off his pedalboard so hard these days.
Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:18 pm
by nuclearfamily
Zounds Perspex wrote:nuclearfamily wrote:I always messed around with alternate tunings... until I saw Lee Ranaldo play at a music festival last year. Now I almost exclusively use alternate tunings and some open tunings. Personally I find limiting yourself to standard tuning to be very limiting. I love inventing new chords and finding new combinations everytime I pick up my guitar. I find standard to sound kind of ugly now. Anyways these are a few of my favorites:
FACFCF
G#G#G#BbCC
DGDGBbD
CGCFAB
EBEEBE
F#AEG#C#B
Also has anyone tried Lou Reeds ostrich tuning? Having all the strings tuned the same would be kind of cool but I don't want to go through all the effort of put six A strings on my guitar.
Lee is the raddest. I'm working towards ripping off his pedalboard so hard these days.
Yeah I found a PDS 1002 on ebay and bought it just based on the fact that Lee uses one
Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:43 pm
by Bassus Sanguinis
The Gretsch bass VI clone and a four strigner is tuned to drop C. Nothing really crazy in that, just low,
Does the New Standard Tuning count as crazy? C-pentatonic, basicly, nothing more. One of my basses is tuned to this, just for fun. Used to have the same bass tuned D
1-D
2-D
2-G earlier. Great for adding some nasty, disharmonic intervals to chords.
Another nasty one was, for 12-string bass
E
1 -E
2-F
A
1 -A
2-A#
D
2 -D
3-D#
G
2 -G
3-G#
And I came up with something later on, after having sold that beloved 12-stringer
D
1 -D
2-D
D
2 -D
3-D
D
2 -D
3-D
G
2 -G
3-G#
not quite ostrich tuned but ...spreading the idea in three octaves. Might be really dumb, and boring too, in use.
Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 5:53 pm
by onelouderash
nuclearfamily wrote:I always messed around with alternate tunings... until I saw Lee Ranaldo play at a music festival last year. Now I almost exclusively use alternate tunings and some open tunings. Personally I find limiting yourself to standard tuning to be very limiting. I love inventing new chords and finding new combinations everytime I pick up my guitar. I find standard to sound kind of ugly now. Anyways these are a few of my favorites:
FACFCF
G#G#G#BbCC
DGDGBbD
CGCFAB
EBEEBE
F#AEG#C#B
Also has anyone tried Lou Reeds ostrich tuning? Having all the strings tuned the same would be kind of cool but I don't want to go through all the effort of put six A strings on my guitar.
I've done it with all Es and it's fun for a while. Obviously it works best when you're doing open-string drones using the Es as pedal notes while you play on top of them. These days I mostly play in dropped-D dropped down to A (so C# standard, dropped 6th string), but some of my favorite nutty tunings include:
FFDFCE
AAEAAE
AAEEAE
DGDGBE
BF#DGBE
I'll definitely mine this thread for some new ideas!
Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:33 pm
by orangeespoom
x
Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:40 pm
by Big Mon
I use a whole mess of 'em. One is dropped to A, then tuned open to I'm not exactly sure what as I don't own a tuner. Then I have another A- based tuning for folkier stuff, and this one,which I think is (low to high) CEGDGD,and too many others to try and remember right now. I don't use standard tuning for a lot,really.
Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:58 pm
by Adoom
I don't see them as a crutch, or necessarily that they make the instrument easier to play. I much prefer them on acoustic guitar, also. I see them as more an expansion of the instrument. No different than an effects pedal, really. Different timbres and notes are available, melodies and progressions that may not have come up anywhere else. My guitars rarely slip out, and I've gotten fairly decent at that tweaking them while playing thing if they do.
Elixir strings are the only strings I use though. I find them more durable and trustworthy with the ridiculous amount of tuning I go through.
Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 7:31 pm
by coldbrightsunlight
The point about timbres is one of the key things for me, alternate tunings can have surprisingly different tone to E standard. I have my guitar tuned to D standard full time (except when I use alternate tunings, but I centre it around D as standard) because it sounds different to E and covers most of the same range. And if your guitar slips out tune that much, that's not great, my jaguar holds alternate tunings fine with a floating trem...
Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 9:27 pm
by O Drones
Rockin' a classic Sonic Youth tuning right now F#F#F#F#E B. Actually struggling to get to grips with it, always played in pretty standard tunings. Any tips? Really really wanna use some interesting tunings and expand my playing.
Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 10:01 pm
by coldbrightsunlight
Try to write songs. When I tune to something weird I find working out how to play different chord voicings helps understand it, but with F#F#F#F#EB there isn't really too much you can do. Also, trying to play songs which were originally in standard/other tunings, not necessarily in the way it was originally played, just an interpretation in the new tuning. Like with the F# thing you could play simple, super heavy versions of other stuff?
Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 10:18 pm
by Blackened Soul
Half the time I don't know what I tune stuff to, I just sort'a start tuning strings intill I like what it sounds like, "some times" it ends up rather dissonant, but if you pile on enough reverb you get awesome
Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 11:53 pm
by mutmoo
I've used the Ostrich tuning and loved it. I haven't used it lately though....hmmm
Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2011 12:30 am
by snipelfritz
EBBGCe is the tuning meant for me.
that's a song.
Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2011 5:12 am
by Adoom
Ragged Trousers wrote:Rockin' a classic Sonic Youth tuning right now F#F#F#F#E B. Actually struggling to get to grips with it, always played in pretty standard tunings. Any tips? Really really wanna use some interesting tunings and expand my playing.
Ignore anything but trying to find open chords all over the neck first, then whittle it down, removing open strings, then from there you have scales and stuff. Try to work with the open strings, whether you want to be melodic or dissonant, that'll give you the quick tips and cheats. From there you can expand what you're up to with it pretty easily.
Re: who rocks crazy altered tunings?
Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2011 9:29 am
by Repeater
Every once in a while I'll go into the two main Pavement tunings to play some of their songs. They're also pretty fun just to mess around in.
DADABE
CGDGBE