Nick Drake style tuning... Wow! CGCFCF

thecolourbox · July 2023

I broke a string last week on my Acoustic so today I thought I'd restring it. But before doing so I thought I'd try a different tuning so if it snapped anything I wouldn't care. Whenever I sing I seem to get folks saying I sound like Nick Drake so I looked up the tuning he uses on Northern Sky - CGCFCF. Albeit I was missing the one string, the lower F, but still.

Wow, what a beautiful tuning. Capo on 3 or 4 was just beautiful sounding, happy and sad at the same time. The sounds in my head, I guess, having learnt only ever in standard tuning or open A, it is such a refreshing change. I've tried others like DADGAD before but found that less interesting, just ended up playing Kashmir and not inspired to play much else.

Unfortunately everything I know is in standard so now I have restrung it its back in that, but it's got me wanting something extra to put in that tuning. I imagine something jangly like a Danelectro could sound cool, or perhaps something super short scale so I can tune it to the pitch of capo 3 on my current guitar. Here comes the GAS haha but it was genuinely inspiring to play in it.

Any others I can try next time I change strings? Bear in mind I checked and the last time I changed them was November last year lol

trolley · July 2023

Have a look at Zep stuff. Page used some interesting tunings

theatreanchor · July 2023

EBEBBE is fun.

viz · July 2023

There's a really good website with like 200 tunings somewhere, we've referenced it before. I'll have a look, but if anyone else finds it, please post the link!

Stuckfast · July 2023

DADEAD is great and surprisingly different from DADGAD.

There's a tuning Nic Jones used a lot which is CGCGCD. Takes a while to get your head around but can be very cool.

I've found CADFAD and CADEAD to be surprisingly versatile.

AK99 · July 2023

For those who use different tunings - is it primarily a case of learning new chord shapes - or do you also have to think about relearning where the notes are on the keyboard and/or figure out how to create decent sounding runs and links (or heaven forbid, solos..) ?

blobb · July 2023

Tony Cuffe tuning DADADF# - so you can play bagpipe tunes! Try it, but you might want to raise that F# slowly. With your eyes closed.

Stuckfast · July 2023

AK99 said:

For those who use different tunings - is it primarily a case of learning new chord shapes - or do you also have to think about relearning where the notes are on the keyboard and/or figure out how to create decent sounding runs and links (or heaven forbid, solos..) ?

You do have to think about relearning the fretboard, but that's not the main point. Standard tuning allows you to play in any key, but typically only offers you a few different ways of making each chord. Most alternate tunings are more limiting in terms of the keys you can play in, but they offer a far greater choice ofvoicings within those keys.

So for example if you know that the piece of music you're going to be playing only has D, A and G chords -- which is often the case when you're harmonising folk tunes for example -- you may be able to do something a lot more interesting and varied in DADGAD than in standard tuning. By contrast you probably wouldn't use DADGAD to play jazz.

axisus · July 2023

I used to use alt tunings a fair bit on acoustic years ago. My faves were good old DADGAD, and DGDGBD. My best ever acoustic instrumental though came from BEBEBE, a tuning that I think I got from Nick Drake. It was a good piece, but a bit too hard for me to play! I never mastered it ...

AK99 said:

For those who use different tunings - is it primarily a case of learning new chord shapes - or do you also have to think about relearning where the notes are on the keyboard and/or figure out how to create decent sounding runs and links (or heaven forbid, solos..) ?

I never learned any chords etc! I would just noodle around finding interesting sounds with fingerpicking.

drofluf · July 2023

I mainly play “boring” DADGAD

but like CGCGCD. However I find, probably because of how the open strings are used, that some tunes work better in certain tunings. I’ve tried rearranging in different tunings and it often ends up either impossible for, me at least, to play or not as good.

rze99 · July 2023

The EEBGBEs tuning really puts me on edge

everest · July 2023

AK99 said:

For those who use different tunings - is it primarily a case of learning new chord shapes - or do you also have to think about relearning where the notes are on the keyboard and/or figure out how to create decent sounding runs and links (or heaven forbid, solos..) ?

I can only speak for folk idioms, but in my eyes a guitar in e.g. CGCGCD is basically a different instrument to a guitar in standard tuning. Alternate tunings usually force you to think in specific (hopefully useful) ways harmonically and to treat the strings as almost having defined jobs. They make specific bass notes (usually 1, 4, 5) easy to access and usually give you 2 or 3 strings for melody while also guaranteeing you the open strings are in key and, more importantly, will ring sympathetically if you play it right and give you volume, sustain, and lovely subtle drone effects. The guitar I keep in CGCGCD feels alive in a similar way to an electric through a hot amp and will ring audibly if someone coughs near it.

This is a roundabout way of saying that I think neither of the approaches you mention are quite right - while chord shapes, scale patterns and fretboard notes aren't completely pointless, they don't really help you take advantage of what alternate tunings offer. Keeping in mind alternate tunings are usually for solo accompaniment or similar, I think you're best off getting used to where the bass notes are and how to get a third and a fifth, and once you know those you can repeat them on the other strings because of the duplication. Once you've got that you can chuck in open strings with abandon and mess about with the top 2 or 3 strings to produce melodies.

One of the tricks with these tunings is that there are often two strings that are only a tone away from each other, and you can use these to make melodies easier to play by alternating strings while also getting a lovely harp effect (this is assuming you're using your fingers and not a pick - again, a pick will still work but will make it harder to pull the lovely unique musical effects out of the guitar)

One other note that maybe isn't obvious - it's common not to play the lowest string much or at all because it's tuned too low to sound good, but it adds a sort of invisible meaty weight via sympathetic resonance.

edit: Something maybe obvious that I didn't mention is that the best way to get into a tuning to start with is to learn a piece you like. If you're really comfortable that could mean transcribing, but you'll get most of the value from learning from tab, or a video, etc. I probably learnt most of what I know about alternate tunings just from learning a bunch of tunes by Nic Jones and Martin Carthy.

thecolourbox · July 2023

Some really interesting info and thoughts here, as there always is when taking alternate timings. I really do want to learn more in that CGCFCF one but I think for that I'll need another instrument - would my idea of a short scale instrument tuned to that but a few notes higher work? Maybe that mini Squier Jazzmaster could work or something similar? I think it would work with a nice mellow clean electric guitar sound, or something jangly.

marxski · July 2023

I recently discovered EADF#BE - mentioned on other threads as useful for translating lute compositions. I’ve had great fun with this one.

octatonic · July 2023

I use CGCFCC a lot.
Tuning the top two strings to the same not gives you the ability to get a nice chorus effect and play them like you would a 12 string course.

Sambostar · July 2023

Just been learning some obviously led zep influenced Ryley Walker stuff. Open tuning of any sort is durge after two songs, Capo or not. Unless it's a banjo or mandolin. It's just boring and self indulgent with no decent fresh frequencies. I do believe there is convention for a reason. A guitar is no banjo and I'II add. to detune it akin to a banjo is a verging on blasphemy and will rise a many from the grave. Well it won't. because it's durge.

Timcito · September 2023

AK99 said:

For those who use different tunings - is it primarily a case of learning new chord shapes - or do you also have to think about relearning where the notes are on the keyboard and/or figure out how to create decent sounding runs and links (or heaven forbid, solos..) ?

For me, it's a case of learning a song rote without knowing which notes I'm playing (fingerstyle acoustic). I can play various pieces in DADGAD, open G and open Gm that way. Only in standard do I know the notes and chords I'm playing as I'm playing them.

sev112 · September 2023

Sambostar said:

Just been learning some obviously led zep influenced Ryley Walker stuff. Open tuning of any sort is durge after two songs, Capo or not. Unless it's a banjo or mandolin. It's just boring and self indulgent with no decent fresh frequencies. I do believe there is convention for a reason. A guitar is no banjo and I'II add. to detune it akin to a banjo is a verging on blasphemy and will rise a many from the grave. Well it won't. because it's durge.

I play a lot of fingerstyle in DADGAD etc. I too find most of it a dirge! I spend ages trying to find modern interesting fingerstyle stuff to not much luck, just end up with Celtic ditties and 15th century stuff, via a few Ragtime transcriptions, I would love to find some modern altered tuning pieces

DiscoStu · September 2023

Jimmy Page used Gb Gb Db Gb Db Gb on 'Wonderful One' off the Page & Plant No Quarter: Unledded album. I used to play it and it always sounded amazing to me.

Cranky · September 2023

trolley said:

Have a look at Zep stuff. Page used some interesting tunings

Yeah, like Rain Song. Gsus4 tuning I think.

BronYAur Stomp has some kinda open F tuning.

Another great song with open tuning is She Talks to Angels by Black Crowes.

Celtic tuning is awesome, too

Jfingers · September 2023

viz said:

There's a really good website with like 200 tunings somewhere, we've referenced it before. I'll have a look, but if anyone else finds it, please post the link!

https://www.stevemcwilliam.co.uk/guitar/tunings.htm

@Viz is this the one you were thinking of?

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

In this Discussion

Become a Subscriber!

Nick Drake style tuning... Wow! CGCFCF

Comments