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All the capo shaming examples sound like they come from a very narrow standard tuning mindset. Capo, and partial capo even, unlock weird chords and new sounds on all sorts of wacky tunings.

what kind of dickhead would shame someone for using a capo

capos and alt tunings are the best guitar hack, if you can even call it that

I have seen many professional musicians whomst I love and respect playing with capos, hence all capo-bashing seems silly to me. Whatever it takes to get the sounds you want.

I took a few lessons with Peter Lang and he started our first lesson by talking about how open tunings were superior to standard, the thought being that the fewer fingers you have on the neck the more naturally resonant the guitar is. It was his contention that standard tuning was only developed due to the demands of performance, allowing show band guitarists to play in a variety of keys with singers at the expense of tone and more intuitive, easier ways of playing

capos just transpose the key they don't change what notes you have to finger/play

i don't really understand how they make it easier is it just because the strings become closer to the board?

Short history of standard tuning: https://www.fender.com/articles/tech-talk/standard-tuning-how-eadgbe-came-to-be

It quotes Richard Lloyd: "Even though the cello is a larger instrument than the violin, it is played with the neck vertically, which allows the hand to have a little bit easier time reaching for notes. With the guitar sitting in the lap and the neck diagonal to the player, the bend in the wrist starts to make it more difficult to spread out the fingers. So our next best choice for tuning any larger scaled multi-stringed instrument is going to be to tune in fourths, which are a little closer together. On a guitar, a person with a normal-sized hand can reasonably be expected to sound the major third with the pinkie finger while holding down the tonic with the index finger. So it makes sense that the next string should be the fourth.”

I have heard people knock open tunings as lazy but capos? Really? I have always thought of a capo as just reducing the number of frets, and I believe they make guitars in a couple different configurations suggesting it's not a sacrosanct count.

As a total amateur three-chord acoustic strummer, I sometimes use a capo for two reasons: Most commonly to move a song into a key that's easier for me or my wife to sing, and also sometimes so I can play with chord fingering that's easier for me. (e.g., a transposition to play a Bm chord with Em fingering.)

better -for his purposes-, there is no better/worse on this kinda thing except for specific applications

― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Thursday, February 17, 2022 9:48 AM (fifty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i agree that each songwriter/guitarist has techniques better suited to the sound and vibe they're going for. but i agree with ums (well, peter lang) upthread: the fewer fingers you have on the neck the more naturally resonant the guitar is.

I haven't played standard tuning (on my guitar) in probably 10 years. It just sounds so magical in more open or unconventional tunings.

i'm in the same capo-boat at tipsy. alt tunings are mostly mysterious to me and i wish i could crack them. although if i had to choose, i would prioritize figuring out how to pick with all my fingers!

the lenker alt tuning video up there was wonderful, yes, thank you for posting, Indexed

Yeah very satisfying even if you know nothing about guitars

The fun thing about them is that you can just play with hand shapes to find out what sounds good... until someone maybe wants to accompany you and you have no fucking clue what you're playing. It's just "uh, this shape then this one, then I move it up here a few frets" (this is why I've driven away any enthusiasm anyone's ever had to jam with me... as rare as that is in the first place)

"Even though the cello is a larger instrument than the violin, it is played with the neck vertically, which allows the hand to have a little bit easier time reaching for notes.

I believe Robert Fripp's fabled New Standard Tuning is if not the same then close to the same as cello tuning (all fifths?). Though of course his entire approach is pretty unique.

I've never heard anyone badmouth a capo before, tbh. At the very least it can instantly change the *sound* of your guitar, which is cool. Alt tunings are cool, too, but tuning into alt tunings can be a pain in the ass (which I believe is one reason given for why Joni Mitchell stopped touring; iirc it may have even played a part in Nick Drake's depression!).

I cannot believe that Joni Mitchell did not have the resources to have multiple guitars tuned to different alternate tunings and a guitar tech to hand them to her as needed for the next song

I do the simple Neil young move where I drop the high E to D. Just that one little change can make standard chords sound cool and droney

And on the pro level you'd want a separate guitar set up and intonated for each tuning (esp open C which is so slack)

I do the simple Neil young move where I drop the high E to D. Just that one little change can make standard chords sound cool and droney

Drop D is fairly common in pop music, much more so than full on open tunings. "Everlong," "Dear Prudence," "Harvest Moon," "Heart Shaped Box" are a few I've learned that use Drop D.

Everyone from Papa Roach to Fleetwood Mac, I guess...

https://killerguitarrigs.com/best-songs-in-drop-d-tuning/

lenker's suggestion of starting new guitar players with open tunings is such a good idea

i always assume anyone playing a slide is in an open tuning

Drop D is fairly common in pop music, much more so than full on open tunings. "Everlong," "Dear Prudence," "Harvest Moon," "Heart Shaped Box" are a few I've learned that use Drop D.

― Indexed, Thursday, February 17, 2022 11:48 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

also dozens upon dozens of grunge and metal songs

i'm talking the high string

If I may go back to "Symbol" for a moment, there is so much going on with this song! The alternate tuning - "Low C", which I personally had never seen and she doesn't even talk to in that video. The picking pattern that was also new to me; not sure if this is her creation or not -- the thumb is used on eighth notes 1,2,4,5,and 7. The syncopation in the verse's vocal melody -- which makes it a bitch to sing and play simultaneously, at least for me.

Then there's the internal rhyming in these lyrics, which looks more like rap:

Fly make flea, make haste, make waste, eight makes infinity
Times I've tried to make breaks, embrace for the enemy
Meet my face to face, time try to find the diamond
Counting time as time counts me, the river to the island

Fly/ti/my/ti/try/fi/di/is

haste/waste/brace/face

make/eight/brake

Low C is kind of a variation on DADGAD:

CGDGAD

that's more UK/celtic folky

open C (also the "Sun Tuning") which I referred to upthread is similar:

CGCGCE

that's like basically ground zero of american primitive/post-john fahey stuff, an excellent tuning to play around with, almost impossible not to sound good in that tuning

though in both you have to tune the low E past drop D to a low C, which as I said can be a challenge for some guitars if there's not enough string tension and also kind of hard to intonate properly, not that it's ever stopped me

Congrats you just managed to be rockist against Keith Richards, that is high level shit

i had a hearty lol at this

this is very classically "open c" sounding

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep3YHeYP1AM

I cannot believe that Joni Mitchell did not have the resources to have multiple guitars tuned to different alternate tunings and a guitar tech to hand them to her as needed for the next song

I saw a claim that she has written for at least 50 guitar tunings. Found this:

The new influence at work is an electric guitar that Mitchell’s old friend Fred Walecki built for her to alleviate her ongoing frustrations with using alternate tunings--one of the reasons why she stopped touring in 1983 and was on the verge of quitting the stage permanently in the spring of ’95. Walecki, of Westwood Music in Los Angeles, designed the Stratocaster-style guitar to work with the Roland VG-8--the Virtual Guitar--a very sophisticated processor capable of electronically creating her tunings. While the strings physically stay in standard tuning, the VG-8 tweaks the pickup signals so that they come out of the speakers in an altered tuning. This means that Mitchell can use one guitar on stage, with an off-stage tech punching in the preprogrammed tuning for each song.

"This new guitar that I’m working with eliminated a certain amount of problems that I had with the acoustic guitar," Mitchell explained. "Problems isn’t even the right word; maddening frustrations is more accurate. The guitar is intended to be played in standard tuning; the neck is calibrated and everything. Twiddling it around isn’t good for the instrument, generally speaking. It’s not good for the neck; it unsettles the intonation. I have very good pitch, so if I’m never quite in tune, that’s frustrating." Over the years, Mitchell has learned to slightly bend the strings to compensate for the intonation error, but that effort is still often defeated by the extreme slackness of her tunings. "In some of those tunings I’ve got an A on the bottom or a Bb, and it’s banging against the string next to it and kicking the thing out of tune as I play, no matter how carefully I tweak it." The VG-8 sidesteps all these problems: as long as the strings are accurately in standard tuning, she can play all over the neck in the virtual alternate tunings and sound in tune.

xp lovely. Where would you recommend starting with Fahey? His discography looks intimidating.

xp Wow... how did that VG-8 work? Do other musicians use it?

(i.e., how well does it work / was it successful for Joni?)

xp lovely. Where would you recommend starting with Fahey? His discography looks intimidating.

― Indexed, Thursday, February 17, 2022 12:35 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

imo:

https://www.discogs.com/master/18614-John-Fahey-Volume-5-The-Transfiguration-Of-Blind-Joe-Death

https://www.discogs.com/master/98895-John-Fahey-The-Yellow-Princess

xpost The rest of the piece I found was this:

In every gig since the 1995 New Orleans Jazz Festival, Mitchell has used the VG-8, using its effects to build a guitar sound reminiscent of her Hejira era. But the VG-8 is having a much more far-reaching impact on her music than just providing a workable stage setup. In composing and recording the songs for her next album, she’s thrown herself into a heady exploration of the VG-8’s sampled sounds. "Sonically, it’s very new," she said of the tracks recorded so far. "I don’t know what you’d call it. It’s my impression, in a way, of ’40s music. Because I don’t like a lot of contemporary music--it’s just so formulated and artificial and false--I kind of cleared my ear and didn’t listen to anything for a while, and what emerged were these vague memories of ’40s and early ’50s sounds. Swinging brass--not Benny Goodman and not Glenn Miller but my own brand, pulled through Miles (Davis) and different harmonic stuff that I absorbed in the ’50s. Because this guitar has heavy-metal sounds in it and pretty good brass sounds, I’m mixing heavy-metal sounds with a brass section, so it’s a really strange hybrid kind of music. I’m a bit scared of it sometimes, you know. I don’t know what it is."

The richest irony of Mitchell’s VG-8 experience thus far is that this guitar rig, which was intended to make her alternate tunings more practical and usable, has in fact driven her to write her first song in 30 years in standard tuning! A technical barrier is responsible: the VG-8’s samples were created to be used with a guitar in standard tuning, and they’re not accessible (without programming modifications) in conjunction with her alternate tunings.

Here she is using a Parker Fly through the VG-8 (so basically just like Adrian Belew!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7YGPv3xeNY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgSS2fHbB7g

Imo ... it sounds like a guitar synth.

I recall watching Lindsey Buckingham's rig run-down. He uses a lot of alternate tunings, too, but he had one acoustic guitar with a Roland synth pickup by the bridge, which they can use to dial in or trigger a few synths or other sounds to beef up the string.

yellow princess and death chants, breakdowns and military waltzes IMO

if i could only pick one though it would be legend of blind joe death

xpost - Evan's Fahey picks are right on. I would add Days Have Gone By, Vol. 6 and Death Chants, Breakdowns and Military Waltzes

Yellow Princess was my first

I'm going to stop because if I go further I'll just end up listing most of his discography and contending that some of the lesser loved ones are *actually underrated*

for someone still living among us, Glenn Jones is brilliant and probably is the closest to carrying on Fahey's work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13kYsBVErmI

Thanks all!

I'm slowly falling in love with this record. Even better that it's led to a discussion about tunings and Fahey recommendations!

Adrianne seems like a total dude and her dog has excellent bone-chewing skillz.

xxp ah that's from my favorite glenn jones album, and never seen that vid. lovely

I love how Lenker walked away from this whole teen-star thing her dad tried to build for her and has almost certainly ended up a bigger star (of sorts) — playing weird music with her weird friends — then he ever could have made her.

Glenn played my wedding and I consider him a friend, so I'm sorry but I need to put one more youtube clip of him in here along with ums, but I promise it is on topic because every song he does is in a different tuning, and in this clip he is using a partial capo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3L-acWwioE

amazing how songs on this record you didn't really give too much thought to hit you so hard all of a sudden. fuckin dried roses man...

Just had that feeling with Blurred View. I cannot get enough of this album, I think every song is my favourite until the next one comes on.

No Reason though lads...

Never heard them do anything so warm

or so damn catchy

and the flute