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I play a little using D , G and dropped D tunings. I guess there's a couple more out there. Check this here out. You should be able to find something that suits you.

This is brilliant. THANKS!!!!!

You see, now I have an excuse to keep all the guitars I make!

(My Sweetie says that it's not a good idea to sell my first ten guitars, anyway... Ahh, he's SUCH a wise man!! )

I can't play well enough in the one standard, with an occasional D on 1st.  It probably means I don't understand very well. 

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Sam, mind if I use that? I always get the "What do you need another guitar
for?" thing. I know, it's a silly question!

[QUOTE=DannyV] Sam, mind if I use that? I always get the "What do you need another guitar
for?" thing. I know, it's a silly question! [/QUOTE]

Yup!

Mind you, he's imposed a ban on BUYING new guitars.....

One of my favorites is EABEBE which ironically isn't noted. It was used quite a bit by Jars of Clay in their early years (think "Flood" and "Faith Like a Child"). Really neat tuning for acoustic guitars that wanna rock power chords!!!

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Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils - Louis Hector Berlioz

Chansen / C hansen / C. Hansen / Christian Hansen - not a handle.

Christian

I'm with Waddy. I've played for more than 40 years and have never played in anything but standard tuning.
I think that's the only tuning allowed in Arkansas.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

I'm sure my guitars would look fine with different tunings, but then they would just be decorations.  I suppose I could hire someone else to play them.  Then I wouldn't have to practice at all. 

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Waddy and Ron,

The interesting thing about most "dropped/ modal" tunings is that - to my ear ay least - they fit in with the "resonant" modes of most guitars better than so called standard tuning. The lower pitch gives more resonance and sustain and the open strings give each other more support as they have a relationship (usually based around root fifth root) and act more as "sympathetic" strings which gives a more "reverby" quality. Plus as the third is suspended, they are neither major nor minor wich gives a lot of freedom.

As an experiment, put your guitar in DADGAD and then just using one finger to fret with, experiment by fretting anywhere and on any string using just one finger.

Fret the second string on the second fret and you have a D chord. Fret the second fret of the third string and you have a G, fret the second string of the 4th string and you have an A. Fret the second frets of the 5th and 6th string and you have a lovely suspended Em chord.

Also DADGAD is half of standard - any partial chord shapes on the 3rd, 4th and 5th strings in standard tuning also work in DADGAD.

Give it a try

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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

christian, i agree. i also love EABEBE. dont forget "love song for a savior" capo 3.

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sweat the small stuff.

[QUOTE=Chansen] One of my favorites is EABEBE which ironically isn't noted. It was used quite a bit by Jars of Clay in their early years (think "Flood" and "Faith Like a Child"). Really neat tuning for acoustic guitars that wanna rock power chords!!!
[/QUOTE]

Oooh....I heard that CD. Great musical style. Those guys were innovative. A good friend's sister married the lead singer in that band.

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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."

Oops, actually "Faith Like a Child" doesn't have any guitars with this tuning in it.

As far as alternate tunings go - I'm not really that good of a guitar player... but the neat thing about some of these tunings is that some are easier to play. The EABEBE I mentioned is very simple and almost all the chord formations work up and down the fretboard. It's great for strumming but sounds pretty bad trying to finger-pick.

Andy Mckee uses some pretty wild tunings too. I don't think any two of his songs are in the same tuning actually.

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Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils - Louis Hector Berlioz

Chansen / C hansen / C. Hansen / Christian Hansen - not a handle.

Christian

WOW this is neat!

Dave, thanks for the tip on playing in the drop D style also. I have spent 40+ years teaching myself how to play in standard tunings. I dont know if this would be easier for me or not because I would have to be de-programmed first

Sure would love to take a few lessons from someone who knew their stuff with alternative tunings though

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Reguards,

Ken H