Tablature tunings - The Miscellaneous

          



 From welton@rene.ma.utexas.edu Fri Jan 27 00:45:41 PST 1995

  Article: 11740 of rec.music.makers.guitar.acoustic

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  From: welton@rene.ma.utexas.edu (Patrick Welton)

  Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.guitar.acoustic

  Subject: More alt. tunings

  Date: 26 Jan 1995 21:45:37 GMT

  Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas

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  I saw this yesterday on rec.music.celtic and thought it would be

  of interest over here. 

  

  -pat welton-

  ________________________________________________________________

  From: pyoung@srd.bt.co.uk (Pete Young)

  Newsgroups: rec.music.celtic

  Subject: Some Guitar Tunings (was Re: Celtic Guitar Tunings)

  Date: 25 Jan 1995 12:29:44 GMT

  

  Here, dredged up from the depths of my directory structure and suitably

  edited, are the results of the tunings survey conducted by Peter Rayner

  on rec.music.folk in August 1989. Many of the email addresses may no

  longer be current. The one given for me will still work!

  

  This survey could probably do with being updated. Email to me and I'll

  do what I can.

  

  My thanks to all the contributors once again, and my apologies to Peter

  Rayner for dragging his name through the mud. Any errors in the

  following are mine. Don't blame me, I'm a concertina player :-)

  

  At the time I made a plea for information on tunings used by Ry Cooder.

  That plea still stands, since no-one has sent me anything yet.

  

  >From  Pete Young : pyoung@srd.bt.co.uk 

  

  Some nice tunings for you to experiment with:

  (Starting with the 6th or deepest string)

  

  DADGAD Used by everybody and his dog. 

  

  DGDGBD Used by many slide players and also by many Irish players(ie

         Paul Brady on Arthur Mcbride from ``Andy Irvine and Paul Brady''

  

  CGCGCD Nic Jones (Canadee-i-o on Penguin Eggs), Martin Simpson

  

  [After some heated discussion about this tuning, I stand by the claim

  that Nic used it, and tuned the whole guitar down an additional tone.

  An alternative school of thought is that he used DGDGCD and capoed up

  three semitones - the recording appears to be in B Flat - PY]

  

  CGCGCC Jones again (William Glenn on The Noas Ark Trap)

  

  DGDGBflatD Michael Chapman on Playing Guitar the Easy Way (This record

             well worth getting, has a lot of info on tunings and Tabs)

  

  DGDGCD Martin Simpson (A Cut Above - with June Tabor)

  

  EADEAE Dick Gaughan and Nic Jones.

  

  [And we can add to this EAAEAE, confirmed by Dick in r.m.f last month - PY]

  

  A one-song special by Iain Kearey, formally the bass player

  with the Oyster Band. This was a 12-string tuning for the song

  ``Dowie dens of Yarrow'' and was C-G-C-Eflat-Bflat-Eflat.

  

  >From  Ronald Anderson: rona@videovax.tv.Tek.com

  

  I think CSN&Y's Gueniviere had a tuning something like DBDACD, but I'm

  probably wrong. I remember it being wierd, because some of the strings

  got tighter, and they often broke if they weren't new ( and sometimes

  even when they were ). Two of the higher strings were dissonant when 

  open ( a believe, a major 2nd ). I'm fairly confident that the B and A

  are right. I got it from a book somewhere. Perhaps someone on the net

  has a copy ?

  

  From: mjn@cs.brown.edu (Michael J. Natkin)

  

  One of the Guitar Player special series, "Hot Licks", has a special

  section on alternative tunings sometime lasy year [1988!]. As i recall

  it listed 50 different tunings, described their uses, named songs,

  and gave a short example. You might see if it is offered as a back issue.

  

  From: DOW@MAINE.BITNET (Michael R. Dow)

  

    I just picked up "The Guitar Book" by Pierre Bensusan .. (For those of

  you who don't know who this guy is, he uses DADGAD in 90% of his music.)

  While this book is a little on the advanced side, (It uses tabulature

  coupled with standard music notation) it is an excellent book to learn

  some new finger techniques and get some new ideas on DADGAD...

  

  From: mdt@druin.ATT.COM (Michael D. Todd)

  

  [Re Michael Hedges]

  That's not uncommon with him.. He makes extensive use of DADGAD, DADDAD and

  other variations in D..  There was a special edition 'Hot Licks' (put out

  by the now-defunct FRETS magazine, I think) which had a lot of different

  tunings in it.. I own a copy of it somewhere...

  

  One tuning I've been using a lot (works great for key of E-major) is:

  E,A,D,F#,B,E.  It was a popular lute tuing.  It allows you to let the 3rd

  string (F#) be played open on E,A, and B voicings giving respectively E2, A6,

  and B5.  It greatly simplifys the fingerings on many of John Dowland's songs.

  

  From: aaalexis@sactoh0 (Andrew A. Alexis)

  

  > Some of Martin Carthy's stuff (esp. w/ Steeleye) seems to be in open G,

  >    DGDGBD, though I'm not sure. I've found his arrangements easier to 

  >    play this way since he does alot w/ octaves.

  > Someone once told me that British and Irish music can be done in an

  >    open D tuning, but I've never found any good applications...

  >    suggestions are welcome.

  

   I had quite a bit of trouble figuring out Martin Carthy's pieces

  until I found out his tuning(s).  One he uses quite a bit nowadays

  is DADEAB.  Yes, the high E string is all the way down to B.  THis

  is a little too slack for me, so I use DADEAD.  This is a tuning 

  that John Renbourn uses occasionally(Pelican) and Alex Degrassi

  uses extensively.  I play Geordie, Over the Hills, and Cold Haily

  Windy night in this tuning approximately like Carthy does.  It is

  very difficult to get his percussiveness down, so I do the best I

  can.  Carthy also has a book out with the words/music to a lot of

  the ballads he does, and a few transcriptions of instrumental

  guitar pieces he does.  He doesn't include any of the ballads

  accompaniments because(as he says in the intro) he doesn't want to

  have too many carthy clones around.  I got my copy in San

  Francisco, at the Guitar Store(maybe Guitar Shop).  It is an

  imported book and may be hard to find.

  

  From: aaalexis@sactoh0 (Andrew A. Alexis)

  

  In article <11359@brunix.UUCP>, gjs@cs.brown.edu (Greg Siegle) writes:

  > 

  > While we're on it, I've been playing with transcribing some Michael

  >    Hedges (yes, I'm making up notation as I go), and have found 

  >    some of his tunes easiest in CGDGBD, another Gsus4 tuning. Has

  >    anyone else used this tuning? It seems quite fun but I haven't

  >    found it before.

  

   I believe that Leo Kottke uses CGDGBD on a version of Tumbling

  Tumbleweeds he does on one of his later albums.  Also, the only

  tuning I have ever come up with that allows one to play "OWLS" from

  Greenhouse is CGDGBE, which is close. 

    The dropped C tuning is also used extensively in Hawaiian Slack

  Key guitar.  There was a book on Slack Key guitar at one time put

  out by Oak.

    Another person who uses something like the C etc tuning is Dave

  Evans, who is on Kicking Mule.  He uses both CGDGBbD and CGDGAD.

  

  From: paul@celerity.uucp (Paul Kelly)

  

  I sat down a while ago and gave a shot to Hedges's version of "All Along

  the Watchtower," probably his easiest song.  From all the harmonics he

  hits on it it was pretty easy to get the tuning.  It's DADEAE and the 

  main theme of it is just the 3 low strings on the 4th fret, 2nd fret, 

  and then open, then ring the 12th fret harmonic (and rap on the side

  of the guitar occasionally).  Mighty easy to play, but it looks and 

  sounds very impressive ;-).  In addition, he uses CGDGBD on "Rickover's 

  Dream," but I sure can't play it.  CGDGBD is the same tuning, also, that

  Joni Mitchell uses on "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire," and a slight

  variation, CGDGBE, appears to be what Neil Young uses on "Cowgirl in the

  Sand" on 4-Way Street.  I'm not positive about that, though, so correct 

  me if I'm wrong.

  

  

  --

    ____________________________________________________________________

    Pete Young        	pyoung@srd.bt.co.uk      Phone +44 1473 640885

        "Just another crouton, floating on the bouillabaisse of life"

  

  

  

  

   


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 Tunings, de The miscellaneous 

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