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Larry Miller
Akahai
USA
65 Posts |
 Posted - 01/16/2005 : 1:12:21 PM
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With my Gibson 12-string, I'm *already* a full step below concert pitch, so when I tune down to an open "c", I'm actually hitting a low B. I need to use sturdy strings, or it starts to rattle and clatter.
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Whee ha!
Larry M |
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Stringbreaker
Akahai
USA
62 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2005 : 09:07:56 AM
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I use the term "clone" myself to refer to a tuning with the same intervals but is an arbitrary number of steps off in either direction. I got the idea from working with the capo a lot and seeing that there was no real difference in playing technique when you adjust a tuning that way. It was when I started thinking of dropping a tuning down as an anti-capo (ghastly term, that) that it came together. Taro Patch is its own thing, no matter what the starting pitch. When I am identifying a tuning, I use a "by the numbers" approach: if in standard tuning you check the strings by fretting at 5 5 5 4 5 (bottom string at fret 5 matching 5th string open, 5th string at fret 5 matching 4th string open,...) then all Taro Patch is 5 7 5 4 3, and if the bottom pitch is D, then that is the usual form. Any tuning is amenable to this approach for identification. The other advantage of this method is it shows the common element in different unings very clearly: Open D is 7 5 4 3 5 (D A D F# A D) and if you capo that at the 5th fret you get G D G B D G, showing that the bottom 5 strings are the same as the top 5 strings in Taro Patch. Think of it like a "partial capo" effect. Many tunings show this kind of connection: ask if you want more details. But playing in tunings is quite hard enough without having to relearn what you already know.
Stringbreaker |
Crazy Man Tuning |
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Karl Monetti
`Olu`olu
USA
756 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2005 : 08:42:16 AM
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Not to beat this to death, but I just got my copy of Green Flash Slack Key by Doug and Sandy McMaster. They had told me the story of this CD after dinner in Hanalei a few weeks ago so i ordered the CD right away.
It was recorded in one night, using a new guitar given Doug as a gift. According to the liner notes (and this is the part relevent to this discussion) "...the recording tests were not going well. We decided to try a slightly lower tuning. This tuning made the guitar happy..so we kept working..."
There you have it! Yet another reason one may wish to tune down from G to F (playing along with the CD it is in taropatch tuned down to F). It just may make your guitar more happy, and, if your guitar is happy, it will let you play it better and, then, you will be happy, right? |
Karl
Frozen North |
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Antoine
Aloha
France
28 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2005 : 12:25:39 PM
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Excellent story, Karl ! I specially like the idea of a happy guitar, I believe that can be true ...
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Antoine 'Ilio Wela |
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Karl Monetti
`Olu`olu
USA
756 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2005 : 3:40:50 PM
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Antoine,
Yes, happy guitars make for happy players. My other happy guitar experience is one that is repeated every time I pick up my first really good guitar, a used early model high end Taylor jumbo, spruce top, all maple, incredible detail work all over. It is the one guitar that is happey enough to make me sound (occassionally) good. I have only "written" two songs in my 45 years of playing, and they were both on the night I took that guitar back to the hotel room. I don;t travel with it anymore, as I treasure it too much to be lost or damaged. But, every time i come home to it, everything i play on it sounds better, brighter, fuller, and that makes me happy, so i play better, with more feeling. Hard to say how or why an inanimate object could have such an effect on a person (I am certain RJS will have some input on this one), but it sure does.
Actually, this guitar is happy whether tuned up to open E, or down to open C. (just trying to get back to the original thread of tunings) |
Karl
Frozen North |
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slackkeymike
Lokahi
440 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2005 : 6:52:18 PM
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Happy guitars are, like happy people, less stressed! 
Mike |
Aloha, Mike |
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slackkeymike
Lokahi
440 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2005 : 5:39:08 PM
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Just a question, but I have noticed that slack key tunings result in some chords (lots??) being a simple bar chord. Is this the result of steel guitar? I guess I am asking if steel guitar players introduced tunings suited for the steel bar, and from there came slack key guitar playing??
Is this a chicken and egg question?
Mike |
Aloha, Mike |
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Fran Guidry
Ha`aha`a
USA
1579 Posts |
Posted - 01/21/2005 : 11:28:22 PM
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The first steel guitar player was a slack key player who put a metal rod across the strings of his slack key guitar. Check the intro to the Steel Guitar section here.
When a tuning results in an "open" or unfingered chord, it follows that a barre at any fret will produce a chord.
Fran
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E ho`okani pila kakou ma Kaleponi
Slack Key Guitar in California - www.kaleponi.com
Slack Key on YouTube
Homebrewed Music Blog |
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Karl Monetti
`Olu`olu
USA
756 Posts |
Posted - 01/23/2005 : 7:48:31 PM
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Mike,
The true "open"tunings end up with barre chords. Open G (taropatch) Open D (E), open C. (The open tuning is, in itself, a barre chord at the nut) But any of the wahine tunings require that at least one finger be used to create a major chord.
Even i n the open tunings, though, you can find substitutes for those barre chords elsewhere on the neck , so you're not stuck with just the barre chords to play. It makes it easier for slide players of any stripe to play in these open tunings, but there are lots of other major chord voicings up and down the neck that give us the variety that is so pleasing to the ear |
Karl
Frozen North |
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Larry Miller
Akahai
USA
65 Posts |
Posted - 01/26/2005 : 6:51:39 PM
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Very true about open tunings- after having originally learned open G, when I later got into folk and blues, it was easy to figure out bottleneck-style guitar. I put the slide on the little finger and make not only barres, but barred chords as well.
For example, a lot of Keith Richard's best guitar licks are in open G, often cross-keyed to D. etc.
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Whee ha!
Larry M |
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