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An Introduction To Alternate Tunings

alternate
One of the first things a new guitarist learns is how to tune their instrument. The accepted method of tuning (EADGBE, from lowest to highest string) is known as standard tuning. It has been in use practically since the guitar was converted from a five-string to a six-string instrument in the 17th century and serves most guitarists quite well. But there's more than one way to tune a guitar. In fact, the number of tunings at your disposal is limited only by your imagination. Guitar tuner buttons play an important role to make it a perfect one.

Alternate tunings are deviations on the tried-and-true standard tuning. Open tunings refer to any tuning that forms a full chord when all open strings are strummed together. They are common to blues and folk music as well as for playing with a slide or bottleneck. If you've never heard of alternate or open tunings, or if you've shied away from giving them a go because you find a departure from the ordinary utterly baffling and a bit intimating, take heart. You are not alone. The thought of toying with something as constant as a guitar's tuning frightens a lot of people, especially beginning guitarists, who have enough trouble keeping their guitar in standard tuning. It's easy to get into a mindset that says standard is "normal" and anything else is not. And many players get discouraged from exploring alternate tunings due to the work involved in changing from one tuning to another and back again.

There are definite and compelling advantages to using alternate tunings though, the most obvious of which is that they make different pitches available on the open strings. New tunings open up a world of voicings and musical textures that inspire new ways of thinking about music. They enable you to play accompaniment that is more varied and far richer than what can be had in standard tuning, which is a real boon to fingerpickers. Alternate tunings also allow you to slide between chord forms that would normally be impossible in standard tuning, unless of course you have elastic fingers. Chord progressions can be played in an open tuning using just one finger to change the bass note. In standard tuning playing the same progressions may require all four fingers and sometimes the thumb!

Joni Mitchell is famous for her extensive use of various tunings. Almost every song she composed on the guitar used something other than standard. Her repertoire includes more than 60 different tunings. Some put that number at closer to 100 when factoring in a capo. One of the big reasons Joni stopped touring in 1983 was that it had simply become impractical to either change tunings between every song, or carry enough guitars set to various alternate tunings and hire enough techs to handle it all backstage. Joni ultimately was given a modified Stratocaster that she used with the Roland VG-8 processor to electronically create all her different tunings, which allowed her to return to live performance.

Ani DiFranco is another artist who pushes her guitar strings above and beyond standard tuning. DiFranco has some really bizarre tunings like EEBABD and AADGAD, where the low E string is tuned down to an octave below the A string, for the song "Dilate."
Read More: https://www.guitartricks.com/blog/an-introduction-to-alternate-tunings#comment-4056246567

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