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man do i love them. it took an uncompromising bandmate in my most recent band to even get me to go back to a straight-up standard E tuning after about 8 years of never touching it... one of my old favorites is, from low to high, D A D A A D. great for sliding monsterous power chords around, or playing octaves based around a D and/or A drone.

just found a new one tonight that i'm very much liking. from low to high, Bb, E, B, G#, G# (unison), C#. i have regular 9's on there (though i would normally have 12's with a wound G if it wasn't for that whole bandmate insisting on E thing), so tuning down 6 frets on the low E gets it kinda... did i mention i love Thermal Treasure? it's fun because the intervals between the strings are 6, 7, 9, 0, and 5 frets. which seems ridiculous maybe, but the 2nd through 5th strings make for a very nice sounding barre, an interesting phrasing of a plain old major triad. i'm always a sucker for the unison, too. sounds extra rich and opens up a whole new realm of easy-dissonance possibilities as well (read US Maple). and then the lowest string one fret higher yields a big mushy octave down of the 5th (the B). too fun!

anybody like the whole alternate tuning thing? any favorites you'd like to share? or not?

Yeah I'm a huge fan of alternate tunnings as well. It springs creativity. I like to use alternate tunings and sometimes add a capo to the recipe. I really like standard alternate tunings (if that's not an oxy moron). But ones such as open D, Open A, and the last time I played a barritone I had a lot of fun. I like the rural blues sound a lot.

Playing in standard tuning is almost like an alternate tuning for me. One of my favs is from low to high: D F D A B E.

Fun way to confuse yer fingers. I had this 12string tuned weird and the harmonics were fun to fourtrack with. I hunted this info down from an old AP about the tunings Polvo used. Figured this'd be a good place for it.


On Exploded Drawing and This Eclipse they used E B A G A F.

Some of Today's Active Lifestyles and Celebrate the New Dark Age were done with lowG G C C C E as well as them just tuning down half a step.

Cor-Crane secret was done in D A A G D D,

with "Vibracobra" and "Lazy Comet" done in D A# A# # D D


Faiz

I have a guitar permanently set up for DADGAD - you get good drone possibilities plus a number of moveable chord forms.

kerble wrote:with "Vibracobra" and "Lazy Comet" done in D A# A# # D D

Youre missing a sharp there. Is it another A#?

I just saw that.

I'm thinking it's a G# as it's similar to the rest of the Cor-Crane stuff with the middle strings tuned up a half-step.



Faiz

The Open E tuning is one I see myself gravitating towards ever so often a la Glenn Branca/Rhys Chatham. The problem is, there's always a need for multiple guitars to achieve the full effect of the densely stacked overtones produced with such a tuning, and at inescapably loud volumes.

there was an interested conversation started up at a friend's place sunday night over a game of poker. he has a piano that came with his apartment. and it's horribly out of tune. but then... tuning a piano... three strings per key... what about tuning each key to play a triad, so the black keys would be minor chords and the white keys would be major chords, or something along those lines? has anybody messed with this? the possibilities for extremely fucked-up sounding piano stuff seem plentiful.

what, so you'd be able to play a one-note chord? sounds like an amazing idea! i doubt it would be very forceful, or loud, though - imagine how much noise just one key makes...