alternate tunings

[Jane]

I have been reading a lot about alternate tunings na dhow to go about achieving them. What I don't get is this. Does altering the tunings mean, you no longer play, for instance, and C chord the way you learned to play it when you were just starting out? I guess it seems to me one would need to know the entire fret board, and which notes are in which chords in order to reconstruct them? Thanks for any help.

[disturbed_pyro]

Check this out, it might help ya a bit.
http://www.cyberfret.com/first-fret/drop-d-tuning/index.htm

[cyberfret]

Yes, your old friend the C chord will not be in the same place for different altered tunings :) One reason for using an altered tuning is to play some unique chords that use some open strings that are not available in standard. Having the open strings tuned to some other notes opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Chances are you would not play a common C in an altered tuning, But look for some voicings that highlight some of those open strings that you didn't have before. To really learn each tuning as well as you might know standard tuning would take a lot of time. It will force you to not play some of the those standard chord voicings...like C. Though in some tunings that C shape may create a really cool sounding new chord, but it will not be a C chord, just a C chord shape.

You might try and search out some chords based on instinctive sound only. You might then use your knowledge of theory to figure out what the chord would be called.

Try this. Get into a different tuning. Then randomly place 2 fingers on a couple of different strings, then strum those 2 notes along with some adjacent open strings. No theory here. If is sounds bad, just start altering some notes until you find something that sounds good.

So every altered tuning requires a completely new vocabulary of chords, scales, etc. But each tuning opens up a world of possibilities that can not be done with standard tunings.

Here are some links to check out for some more information on open tunings.

http://www.alternatetuner.com/

http://www.cruzio.com/~gpa/mary/tunings.htm

http://www.execpc.com/~pgkuchar/opentune.htm

http://users.penn.com/~timmr/alt_tuning.html

http://www.win.net/mainstring/tunings.html


This is probably the best book on alternate tunings

The Complete Book of Alternate Tunings (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0936799137/cyberfcomonlinec) by Mark Hanson

--Shawn