Phil Taylor
C.O.G.
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Post by Phil Taylor on Mar 5, 2015 9:05:35 GMT
Oooooh!! Interesting sounds. I've started playing around with Csus2 tuning. aka Aadd9 as per Martin Simpson in his "Teaches Alternate Tunings" book which is my bible for altered tunings. C G C G C D Even down at C on the bottom string the low tension Newtone Heritage strings keep playing well on the Lowden. The tonal qualities down at that bottom C are rather fine! Having Root 5th Root 5th Root on the bottom five strings seems to give good options for small partial chords and the open D on the top string fits very well with other notes being played. So far it's very much just a case of ranging around the fretboard and trying to get a feel for what patterns and note combinations work best. There is a TAB in the book for Martin Simpsons arrangement of "Raglan Road" - while not attempting to play it properly and study it, I've been skimming through it with approximations to the right notes and timing and so far what I have heard suggests that this is a good tuning to use. Funny - I did try open C a few months back and it didn't really do much for me. The only difference with Csus2 is the top string is D rather than E. Maybe I've improved and maybe open C would work better if I went back to it now? But Csus2 must have something going for it for Martin Simpson to call it one of his particular favourites. Anyway - I've much to do on exploring this tuning. Mark Just catching up with this good thread again Mark and thought I would show you this, 'Bob's Song' by Martin Simpson which I feel would be a good one to try in this tuning: I don't think it is too difficult a piece to try. Cheers Phil Phil
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Andy P
C.O.G.
Posts: 4,982
My main instrument is: Taylor 312ce, Guild D25, Deering 5 string banjo
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Post by Andy P on Mar 5, 2015 16:54:04 GMT
I've really enjoyed reading this thread and it's given me a few ideas to try when I have a bit of spare time. Being a Joni Mitchell fan in the early days, I often played stuff in open G. Did you ever hear this one, with the 6th string tuned way, way down to G?
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Post by vikingblues on Mar 5, 2015 19:48:18 GMT
Nice link Phil - Bob's song sounds very fine ... in your hands! I'll maybe look at getting TAB for it if I can. It has the trademark Martin Simpson sounds in it's melody / harmony. I hadn't heard that Joni Mitchell number Andy - or at least I don't recall it. Not the same as never hearing it, right enough! Woah - bottom string tuned to G! - like a big rubber band! Her use of open and altered tunings is very effective - really makes for great guitar sounds. I'm sure I recall seeing it quoted that she once picked up someones guitar, played it a bit and asked what was the strange tuning it was in - turned out it was standard tuning. I do find I rarely use the bottom string in open G - I can see the value of utilising it as a lower G. Despite it pretty much just being a 5 string experience I do find open G is a very good tuning for effective improv. Mark
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Post by andyhowell on Mar 6, 2015 8:05:21 GMT
I do find I rarely use the bottom string in open G - I can see the value of utilising it as a lower G. Despite it pretty much just being a 5 string experience I do find open G is a very good tuning for effective improv. Mark It took me a while to understand it but I like using G SUS 4. There are two versions. One has the bass string down to D - this is more useable than straight Open G on the bottom D. The other takes the bass down to C which is very different and interesting - it seems to play Blues Run the Game on its own!
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Post by Cams on Mar 7, 2015 14:32:06 GMT
There is a recent(ish) July 2013 You Tube video from Martin Simpson, where he explains one of his latest tuning: Thank you for posting that. Most interesting indeed. I also didn't know that Martin was playing a PRS these days!
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Post by Cams on Mar 7, 2015 14:45:45 GMT
Here you go - this is my first DADGAD tune. As mentioned above it's really just a series of shapes and scales that I've tied together, but it kind of works I think. I really enjoyed that. Well played that man! I play accompaniment with a ceilidh band. We also have a clarsach in the band and I found that standard tuning wasn't really working, so I switched to DADGAD and it made all the difference in the world. And it was a real eye opener for me because I knew only the very basics of chord positions in DADGAD and a lot of what I was doing was experimenting and finding my own way. I was now complementing what the clarsach was doing and worked well. The only limitation I'm dealing with is with key changes in sets of tunes. I don't have the chops of Bensusan, so I'm relying heavily on the capo. Thankfully, the Quick Draw fits my Santa Cruz well, and I've pretty much got the hang of sliding it up and down between tunes to the point where I've seen guitar players in the audience start pointing at me when they see what I'm doing! The other limitation is that for a lot of the songs I'm accompanying in standard tuning, so I either need two guitars with the accompanying issues of space and two DIs, or I'm switching tunings up and down and up and down. So I've started working on moving the songs over to DADGAD as well. I did Raggle Taggle Gypsy into the Banshee and the Silver Spear at the last gig and it went really well! I haven't read through this entire thread and I'm guessing that a lot of teaching material has been mentioned, but in case this one hasn't, take a look at Frank Kilkelly's accompaniment book. It's been really useful to me for figuring out DADGAD accompaniment.
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Post by Cams on Mar 7, 2015 14:48:14 GMT
Being a Joni Mitchell fan in the early days, I often played stuff in open G. Did you ever hear this one, with the 6th string tuned way, way down to G? This Flight Tonight was the very first tune I ever changed my tuning for. I think it was in an old AG magazine or something. So good to hear it again!
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Post by vikingblues on Mar 8, 2015 20:20:33 GMT
Being stressed out more than a little I've been avoiding hard work in my spare time and I've avoiding trying to learn any pieces of music, but I've at least been distracting myself with noodling around doing improvs in the OpenCsus2 tuning. It at least has the merit of distracting me from work for a few minutes at a time and helps to keep what remains of my sanity relatively intact. I'll try not to forget Bob's Song Phil but it could well be another couple of months before the pressure eases off and I'm in a better frame of mind. So this audio clip linked below is the sort of thing I amuse myself with - musically inferior, particularly following videos of Joni Mitchell and Martin Simpson above, but useful medicine for my head. Early Days on the Open C I REALLY am sorry about the pun! The tuning does lend itself to this sort of meandering semi chordal stuff. I like making it up as I go along, but you'll notice it leads to eccentricities of timing and coming to almost grinding halts. The more I get used to a tuning the better these improvs go - and this is very early days on this tuning. Mark
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