Tuning

  1. The Nashville Tuning

    The Nashville Tuning
    [caption id="attachment_2172" align="alignright" width="299"]STONES Wild Horses by The Rolling Stones is one of the better known songs that uses the Nashville tuning.[/caption] Both guitarists and record producers alike have been using the Nashville tuning for years as a way to make a six string guitar sound like your classic 12 stringer – but that doesn’t mean that’s all its good for! For the cost of a new set of strings, you may just find that—in addition to endless possibilities in the recording studio— Nashville tuning can open the door to a whole new world of inspiration for songwriting and live playing, whether you use it on electric or acoustic guitars. Continue reading →
  2. DADGAD Tuning: From Folk To Zeppelin and Beyond

    For most guitarists, alternate tunings are associated with the blues – the open G, open E and open D tunings that can be the perfect set-up for slide playing. While most of these tunings have been popularised by electric and acoustic players over many years, DADGAD tuning is somewhat different. The origins of DADGAD – say it as a single...
  3. Get Started Playing Open Tunings

    Mention open tunings and some guitarists’ eyes glaze over – especially if they’re from the rock world, where standard tuning lives up to its name or, perhaps, dropped D or even-tempered half- or whole-step across-the-fretboard detuning comes into play. But in blues and folk music, and in some of Led Zeppelin’s greatest recordings like “Kashmir,” which is in D-A-D-G-A-D, open...
  4. Tuning Harmonically (Even the B String)

    Here's a great article with tips on tuning your guitar using harmonics courtesy of the Fender Website. Absent an electronic tuner, you know how you can get your instrument to a point where it’s at least in tune with itself using the harmonics at the fifth and seventh frets? And you know how that works on guitar for every string...
  5. TECH TIPS: Common Alternate Tunings

    There’s more than one way to tune a guitar, you know. The standard low-to-high EADGBE tuning has been commonplace for ages, but plenty of familiar songs take musically fascinating advantage of a variety of alternate tunings. Here are the names and structures of five such tunings (listed low to high in parentheses), along with examples of popular songs that use...

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