Jack-Flash-Jr
This is from their site:
http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/drop-tuning-0915-2011/
[quote]it’s almost a quaint curiosity when a band chooses to perform in standard tuning[/quote]
So weigh in with your personal percentage and thoughts! The Article focusses on dropped tunings but we'll lump them in the same bag for the votes.
We sometimes combine one guitar in open E or G with the second guitar in standard but that counts as non-standard as a whole for the purposes of the poll.
(old forum) Poll Results: What percentage of your setlist practice list is non-standard (drop D counts)?
- 100%: 1
- 90%: 2
- More than 70%: 2
- About 50%: 3
- Between 25% and 50%: 0
- Less than 25%: 24
- None. Everything is in standard.: 32
Squonk
I have 10 original compositions and 3 of them are in standard tuning.
My Acoustic is usually in double dropped D. Enjoy open G and DADGAD as well
VellaJ
I'd like to experiment more with non-standard tunings, but the mainstream stuff I play doesn't necessarily call for it. And it's too much effort to re-tune guitars ? I think I need that new Fret King guitar with the auto-tuning bridge...
dee
Give it time, soon standard tuning will be the "exotic" tuning to learn!
Malkav
My guitars are in standard, it's just that when I have to play something a little heavier I have extra strings to call on ?
You'd figure if Gibson think that everyone plays in some sort of drop tuning they'd start making more guitars with longer scales...
AlanRatcliffe
Sorry, but the big G lost touch with reality a long time ago. They seem to think that telling us what we want will make it so (number one ?). Methinks they been sniffin' they own marketing fumes too long.
Bob-Dubery
Percentages? Hmmm.... I'm not sure. I play in drop-D a lot.
I also make use of a partial capo that gives an effect (but not fingerings) close to drop D. This goes on at 2nd fret and holds the first 5 strings down. (for one song I put on a regular capo at 2nd fret and used the partial at the 4th - which just moves everything up a tone).
I have one song I play occasionally that's in CGDGBE ("1952 Vincent Black Lightning").
I do use standard tuning. I'd need to sit and work out percentages. I'm playing more with a pick lately, and I incline towards standard tuning when I'm just strumming away.
I use capos as well. So the combinations I most commonly use are
Standard tuning - capo at 3rd
Standard
Drop D
Drop D and capo at 2nd.
Partial capo at 2
For a while I had one guitar kept tuned to open D - I was taking slide lessons at the time. I don't think I've ever used open D for anything other than slide.
Something I mess around with from time to time is a tuning that Fingerpicker showed me. Stephen Stills uses it a lot, but it didn't originate with him.
It's EEEEBE. The 5th gets tuned down to the same note as the 6th. The 4th actually goes up a tone. The 3rd comes down to the same E note as the 4th. That's a lot of fun.
In the folk and folkish world altered tunings are quite common. Nick Drake (not folk, in fact what the hell do you call what he did?) used lots of tunings, some of them of his own invention. Martin Simpson, when I saw him, had two guitars with different tunings - both of them completely non-standard. Martin Carthy has a tuning of his own devising (which he says he derived from DADGAD) which has the 6th down to C and the first all the way down to A. Richard Thompson, as far as I can tell, uses 4 tunings for solo live shows - Drop D, DADGAD, standard and CGDGBE. He uses capos a lot as well. Bruce Cockburn uses drop D quite a bit, and he also does some songs where he drops the 3rd to F# (one of the tunings that Nick Drake liked).
I think this is easier for big acts because they can have lots of guitars and lots of guys tuning them. Nick Drake had problems for the few live dates that he did do because he was forever tuning a guitar. Thompson (who usually tours with one guitar) seems to structure his set so that he tunes and then does 3 or 4 songs in that tuning - he also has a handy line in patter which keeps the interaction with the audience going whilst he retunes. Simpson when I saw him used just two tunings, which interested me because on his recent discs he has, in the liner notes, noted the tuning he uses for each song and there are 5, 6, 7 of those. So he's had to "relearn" some songs to play them live.
I find that going between standard and drop D is no big deal on stage. The partial capo just goes on and off. CGDGBE is more of a problem because so much tension comes off the neck and so all the strings move a little - when I've used that live in the past I've had two guitars with me.
Thompson seems to use drop D almost all the time on his electric - maybe with a capo depending on the song and the key. When I saw him with his band he had a 2nd electric that he used on one song - presumably tuned differently.
Oh... a couple of years ago I saw Bruce Molsky play live. He had two fiddles on stage with him - different tunings. It's not just a guitar thang. I have two DVDs at home with Edgar Meyer on them, and his bass has an extension on the low string past where the nut would usually be that gives him extra low notes.
Charlie4
dee wrote:
Give it time, soon standard tuning will be the "exotic" tuning to learn!
Well according to Gibson this will be the case.
Just a thought, why didn't Shawn Lane, Satch, Petrucci, Vai, Clapton, Page, Beck, King etc. play in other tunings (predominantly, not experiment) and stuck to STD tuning? Is there anyone out there that mastered this tuning?
Whatever Gibson.
Bob-Dubery
Charlie4 wrote:
Well according to Gibson this will be the case.
Just a thought, why didn't Shawn Lane, Satch, Petrucci, Vai, Clapton, Page, Beck, King etc. play in other tunings (predominantly, not experiment) and stuck to STD tuning? Is there anyone out there that mastered this tuning?
Page used non-standard tunings, mostly on acoustic (he used DADGAD a lot) but also on electric (notable example being "Rain Song"). He would also have used some kind of open tuning for slide work.
Page was hugely influenced by Bert Jansch, and Jansch was hugely influenced by Davy Graham. Graham is usually credited with "inventing" DADGAD and so that tuning made it's way into Jansch's playing and then into Page's.
Stephen Stills certainly used altered tunings on acoustic guitar. IIRC John Mayer plays some pieces with a slack key tuning.
I think there's more of this going on than you suspect.
No one tuning does it all, so a lot of guys who use open tunings tend to use multiple tunings.
BMU
Gibson's adeptness at embarrassing themselves is quite remarkable. Do they have a special department for that? An intern training course perhaps?
Garren
It's almost as if they are trying to make us feel bad for playing in standard tuning ???
Well hey, I'll be a rebel ?
Nitebob
Having enough fun learning how to play normal tuning :-[
john-goodenough
Hi
I've got a Hipshot Trilogy bridge on 1 of my strats that allows each string to have a choice of tuning at the flick of a switch.
I have it set up for standard, open E, or GBDGBD.
Great for slide
Bob-Dubery
Well I'm intrigued. Out of 34 voters (at time of typing this) only 4 confess to spending 25% of more of their playing time in a non-standard tuning.
OK... I'm one of those 4, I don't know who the others are ('strue!). Would they care to identify themselves and here's the real question: Are we deviant or are they blinkered?
singemonkey
I think this is a rather obvious attempt to fight the appalling reception of their Homer-mobile of guitars: The Failbird X. They're seeding this blatant propaganda in an attempt to have people (almost all of whom play mostly in standard tuning) to believe that it is crucial to have a guitar that can swiftly change tunings.
While there's no downside to a guitar that can do that, and it can be really useful, I think that's what they've concocted this crock to achieve. Gibson's approach to automatic retuning is quite clearly the steam powered automobile of the competition. It's obviously a worse solution than Trev Wilkinson's petrol driven auto-tuning bridge currently only available on one of his Fret-King guitars but soon to be available (I'm sure) as a replacement bridge for the guitar near you.
vic
Gibson's statement is mind-boggling to say the least...definately a marketing excercise. Period.
To be honest they should rather build fewer guitars/models....it's no secret that the majority of Gibson buyers are traditionalists who do not take easily to gimmicks (for lack of a better word).....I certainly DO NOT want a guitar that can tune itself ! ?
singemonkey
It's very handy if you play multiple tunings from song to song in our small venues where it's difficult to fit masses of guitars on the stage. Finshed playing slide, put the slide down while the drummer counts off and you're hitting the chord in standard tuning.
Problems is Gibson's current management doesn't know how to integrate this tech, and doesn't know the diff between good tech and incomplete/poorly executed tech. Not all fans of Gibson like only their traditional stuff. But many of those interested in innovation can still tell crap from gold. The Les Paul Axcess (sp?) for example is a good new product - improved neck join and Floyd Rose - which is a great design for shredders.
Their robot tuning though, has never really worked, there are better options in that regard, and when added to the absurd chocolate dipped, marzipan coated, caviar lobster that is their FailbirdX, it just gets ridiculous.
G-Man
I play primarily in D standard, and the odd song in standard tuning.
Having said that I am looking at a second guitar to learn some more standard tuned songs (it's a pain tuning all of the strings every time I feel like learning something a little different)
Fingerpicker
I always feel like I'm crooking when using a non-standard tuning.
They sound cool but continually re-tuning during a set can be a bummer for the audience, even worse if you do that old "ancient chinese folk song" or problem with my G string" thing.
When I decided to buck up (spelling IS correct) my music theory I decided to minimise tunings and capos. It was like giving up cigarettes....
When I saw the headline I had to check the date was not 1 April, I fell for the last one....
Tokai-SA
If you want an electric guitar for multiple tunings then there's only one, the Line 6 Tyler Variax.
