Guide To Alternate Tuning:

 

Tuning is one of the most important aspects of good guitar playing. There is the standard tuning, EADGBE, and there is also what is referred to as alternate tuning. Not every beginner in guitar playing is well versed in alternate tuning, therefore this is our effort to provide you with a basic understanding of the same.

Standard tuning according to historical sources has existed since the 17th century. One of the popular guitars was the five string guitar, which came in much before the standard six string guitar. The five string guitar required multiple tunings and the most popular tuning was ADGBE. ADGBE is almost identical to the current standard tuning except it doesn’t have the lowest string. ADGBE tuning went on to become EADGBE after the introduction and induction of low E to the five strings. Soon the guitar became a six string instrument.

Although EADGBE is called standard tuning, there have always been alternative and what we call alternate tuning. There are different types of alternate tuning for a six string guitar and they are:

Open Tunings

Guitarists who use open tunings tune the six strings of their guitar to form one simple chord. Open tunings makes it easier to play any kind of unusual or alternate chord combination as well as innovative tonal clusters. This is made possible by using the sustained and drone strings. The best part of open tuning is that it enhances harmonics and bottleneck slide, which will result in the ability to play full 6 string chords.

Instrumental Tunings

Another type of alternate tuning is instrumental tunings, which is based on the tunings procedure of historical and modern instruments like the Charango, oud, mandolin, cittern, and many others. Hence the tuning chart for these instruments presents a wonderful way to achieve alternate tuning.

Regular Tunings

 

Regular tunings sounds like standard tuning but is actually more of an alternate tuning. In this kind of tuning, all the strings are tuned up on the fretboard. As a result of this, chord forms can be moved up or down the fretboard like it takes place in a normal bar chord.

Special Tunings

The last type of alternate tuning is the special tuning, which is basically a miscellaneous collection of different tunings that have been popularized by modern day guitarists or vocalists and even songwriters.

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I’ve always been confused with Alternate Tunings until I ran into this blog post at http://learnguitar.ws/tune-guitar/guide-to-alternate-tuning/ so I’m linking it here for all of you who find Alternate Tunings as confusing as I did.

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Once again I hope that this helps you with your alternate tunings for the different songs in your repertoire.  I do suggest that you have one guitar set-up for alternate tunings while you have another set-up to standard tuning.  it makes it much easier to switch guitars on stage rather than try to switch tunings.  However, that’s just my personal preference, you can do it all with one guitar if that’s what you prefer.  Every guitarist has his/her own ideas on how to manage alternate tunings on stage from song-to-song.

Thanks again for joining me and don’t forget to give your kids a big hug and let them know that you love them.  This was a great Labor Weekend for me and my gal, I hope it was for you as well.

Until next time;

Musician By Night