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I just realized, what a time to post this dumb question given the pedigree's of todays Forum participants. Oh well.
Why is alternate tuning used? What determines when it is used? Is music written for alternate tunings or is orig music transposed to alt-tuning?
What and why should changes be made to guitars that are alt tuned?
Thanks for any info.,

I dont really know why people use open tunings, but some people drop
every string a note or just some to make it easier for them to sing with the
gutiar. Sometimes artists will accidently start using D . . . . d instead of
EADGBe and start writings their newer songs in that tuning by accident and
find out later and just use it with their newer songs.

With alternate tunings, you can get a different tonal pallet for your music. Harmonics are effected, and some chords that you can finger sound more cool with alternate tunings. A lot of players actually arrange music specifically for those alternate tunings. There is a nice article on Shawn Colvin in the latest Acoustic Guitar magazine, and she is known for doing a lot of stuff in a specific tuning.

I once had a friend who learned to play in an alternate tuning, and never learned to play with standard tuning. It was weird, but he could make things sound cool like that.

Don Williams39107.6351041667

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Not so dumb of a question!
I have a friend who tried to learn to play in an open tuning, and didnt tune it
right and has his own tuning. Whenever I go play at his house I tend to go
pick up his archtop in hopes it is in standard tuning, but it never is.

Bob,
Not a stupid question at all.

[QUOTE=bob J] Why is alternate tuning used? What determines when it is used?[/QUOTE]

Usually to take advantage of supporting open ringing strings or to fit a style of music e.g blues, traditional/Celtic. Others like Joni Mitchell use tunings to various chords played mostly barre'd. Keith Richard used open G with the low string removed - GDGBD (hence his famous quote when asked his secret "Five strings, three chords, one a**hole").

They nearly all have Root Fifth Root as their core. Major tunings have a major third as well, minor tunings a minor third and the others usually various suspensions - DADGAD is a suspended 4th tuning, Root Fifth Root Fourth Fifth Root. The major third (F sharp) of open D is suspended to the 4th - G. This makes it modal - neither major nor minor.

According to Martin Simpson almost all alternate tunings have their origins in banjo tunings and a lot of these came out of places like Africa.


[QUOTE]Is music written for alternate tunings or is orig music transposed to alt-tuning?[/QUOTE]

Both

[QUOTE]What and why should changes be made to guitars that are alt tuned?[/QUOTE]

Depends on the alternate tuning. Usually to do with string gauges as a lot of the tunings require strings detuning.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

If you love the Rain Song by Led Zeppelin, or many of the songs from LZ III. , then theres a good chance that you will love to play or compose in alt tunings - I have written many songs in my life and most of my fav's are in alt tunings - Theres really no standard tuning to me really, just what we consider standard.
If you look closely at the titles of many alt scales, youll see the name of it will denote the culture from which it was adopted {Hungarian Balinese etc}- in many cases this scale will be derived from thier version of standard tuning.
As we were discussing yesterday slack key form of music - many different tunings are employed in this genre - some top secret and exclusive to one player - if you are a fan of delta blues you may know that some of the masters of that genre used thier own specialized tunings - many of them didnt know "so called" standard tunings and composed blues masterpieces based around thier own idealized musical concepts.
One of my favorite songs I have written is called narcissong, as the title denotes its a song about someone with a wee bit of self obsession going on, which eventually costs the character of the song all the things in his life which were actually important, but that he didnt realize were.
The song is written in open D - but a friend wanted to learn it in standard tuning, so I transcribed it for him. Even though he learned it note for note in that tuning, it just couldnt capture the lush brooding feel of the phrases written in open D.
I feel that standard tuning is a benchmark which musicians can meet upon - which is quite necessary for musical communication, but its by far not the only effective tuning available, and in fact as I just stated is almost ineffectual in certain circumstances, and to express certain musical ideas.
Cheers
Charliewoodcharliewood39107.6203125

Often, slide and bottleneck blues players, like on dobros and lap steels, use open tunings. Lots easier to get a chord if you're using a slide. If you wanted a d, for example, it would be lots tougher with a slide.

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Nice quote Dave .. you forgot the 'two fingers' part I think, thats how I heard it .... most of his stuff is one finger bar, then add the suspended note on top with another finger, ala start me up ... hence two fingers !!

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

In some cases, it makes the chords much easier to play. Watch David Wilcox sometimes. The misic he is making is so full, and rich, and seemingly complicated...but the fingerings for the chords he is using is so simple, and fluid and easy. Just another way of taming the beast I suppose.

I cannot help you with the "how should a guitar be built to take advantage of alt tunings" part...but I can say this: I have a guitar built by Don Williams (a few responses up from this one) and it is awesome in standard tuning, but put that puppy in DADGAD and it shifts up about 2 gears. You can strum a chord, go have a cup of coffee, or get your oil changed, and it'll be ringing when you get back. Don't know why, I really don't, but it's so evidently resonant in that tuning. Maybe Don knows?Bill Greene39107.8276157407

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Don Ross uses a whole lot of alternate tunnings. He claims to use over a hundred!

Like Dave so well put it, it adds a whole new flavor and dimension to music. Another benefit is that even if you hit other strings (most times) in alternate tunnings they will complement the tune you're playing...

The sounds are really awesome too. In his DVD 'Fingerstyle Magic' Don Ross explains the what, when, where and why of alternate tunnings. Very interesting stuff. He also explains (in two tunnings - I forget which) how you can accompany someone who's playing standard!   Great instructional DVD and very cool stuff, if you're into that.

As for different guitars for different tunnings? I play close to ten different tunnings now and I don't see any difference in intonation and they all sound great. One tunning in particular drops down to a B and I have no buzzing of flapping what so ever. I know some would recommend a longer scale length, but I haven't seen the need for it so far. I get the feeling that if your guitar is well set-up and has good intonation to begin with, you won't develop any major problems when you start using alternates.

Then again, I'm just a newbie builder, so take my advice for what it's worth...

Hope this helps.

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Some excellent explanations above, but there's one more reason. Some people just can't leave well enough alone and are driven to tinker. I'm (and many others are) doing it with guitar design, but as for playing, I'm still struggling with standard tuning. My brain couldn't take relearning those three chord shapes!!!

Like David said. Altered tunings give you access to a whole different tonal palette, and so many more possibilities, both in taditional Celtic music where I play a lot of jigs and reels in DADGad and open G, but also in the modern styles of play. When playing a jig say, it always sounds to me like there is more than one guitar playing, such is the wonderful range of tone is produced.

They is of course nothing new and instruments have been played in various tunings for centuries. Of Robert Johnson's 29 songs 16 of them are played in non-standard tuning, including Crossroad Blues, which is in open G (often known as Spanish Tuning). Slide playing in the open tunings is far easier.

My own love of altered tunings started because my great guitar heroes, Davy Graham, Bert Jansch and Martin Carthy all played in them. In fact Davy Graham is credited as the inventor of DADGad, though many would say he was trying to put his guitar into open D but was too spaced out and got it wrong ending up in DADGad.

As to special guitars for it, it's well known that I keep guitars especially for altered tunings but the main change I make is to put a set of balanced strings on them weighted for the tuning of DADGad.

The guitar would only be a shadow of itself if standard tuning was the only one available.

Colin

PS Standard tuning is itself a "standardised" altered tuning.

Colin S39108.2833796296

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[QUOTE=Colin S]
PS Standard tuning is itself a "standardised" altered tuning.
[/QUOTE]

Martin Simpson tells an interesting story of when he lived in New Orleans. A neighbour stopped him in the street, pulled a Telecaster type guitar out of the boot of his car and said "You play guitar don't you -try this out. It's in Standard tuning". Martin gave it a strum and guess what - it was in Open G. "Standard is as standard does" as Old Gaffer Gamgee would say

Open G is called Spanish tuning after a song called Spanish Fandango around the turn of the century. This was in Open G and the sheet music sold like hot-cakes as people played it in the parlour on their "parlour guitars". Open D tuning is called Vestapol.Dave White39108.2343634259

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Fascinating. Thanks so much to all of you