Are alternate tunings bad for your guitar?

Are alternate tunings bad for your guitar?

Does Alternate Tuning Hurt Your Guitar? While alternate tunings can shorten the life of your guitar strings, changing tunings is unlikely to damage your guitar. Most alternate tunings are actually lower in overall tension than standard tuning, so there’s no real risk of applying more tension than the guitar can handle.

What tuning did Skip James use?

open-D-minor tuning
James’ work is characterized by haunting themes, due in no small part to the use of open-D-minor tuning (low to high: D A D F A D). The guitarist picked up this tuning from a fellow Mississippi musician, Henry Stuckey, who had learned it from Caribbean soldiers while serving in France during World War I.

What tuning do blues guitarists use?

open G tuning
Both the blues and folk genres have leaned on open G tuning to deliver a rich, soulful sound. Classic rock (and even modern rock with classic rock flavoring), also uses open G to add a distinctive bluesy tone. Here are a few ways these genres have embraced open G tuning.

What key does Robert Johnson play in?

open A
Johnson played his brand of blues in many keys and in many different tunings, but he’s known for his work in the key of open A. This example shows a passage in standard tuning that Johnson frequently used for intros, turnarounds, and endings. Notice that the lick is similar to others that are in the key of E.

Why do guitarists use alternate tunings?

Changing tuning changes the tonal response of your guitar. If you lower or raise a particular string, the tension of that string is changed, and this can dramatically change the overtones that ring out. Using open strings that are unconventionally tuned also allows for a wide range of tones.

Who wrote Hard Time Killing Floor?

Skip James
Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues/Composers

What tuning is Delta blues?

Without exception, the most common keys in Delta blues guitar are E major and A major, which are both easily accessible in standard guitar tuning. Typically though, open guitar tunings are utilized, because they make slide guitar playing easier to execute.

Did Robert Johnson use open tuning?

Johnson employed open G tuning (low to high, D G D G B D: see FIGURE 3) for tunes such as Crossroad Blues, Walkin’ Blues and Come on in My Kitchen. He utilized specific chord voicings designed to work with open tunings, as shown in FIGURE 4, akin to Stones in My Passway.

What kind of tuning does Robert Johnson play?

Johnson’s tunings can be broken down into four categories: standard tuning, open G, open D and drop D. Some of the songs interpreted as open G or open D may have in fact been performed in open A or open E, respectively.

What are the names of the open tunings?

The two principal open tunings have old, vernacular American names: Vastopol and Spanish. Rather than conceptualize tunings by a letter name that corresponds to a particular key (i.e., “open A” or “open D”), it’s useful to think of them in terms of the intervals of which they’re composed.

Why did Robert Johnson sound like two guitar players?

One of the staples of Johnson’s style is his ability to sound at times like two guitar players, combining driving rhythms on the lower strings with melodic figures on the higher strings. Due to the fact that his recordings were intentionally sped up when first released, definitive analyses of his tunings and capo positions is near impossible.

What are the different tunings for a guitar?

Open D Lowering the open G string, the sus4, from DADGAD tuning, by a half step, to F#, results in a deep-and warm-sounding open D major chord and tuning, voiced, low to high, D A D F# A D, or root, fifth, root, major third, fifth, root (see FIGURE 7 ).