What tunings do you use?

[jeje]

I have a Korg-30 electronic tuner, how do I tune "1 step down", or "half step down" with it? If any of you are familiar with it, please help

edit: that's Korg GA-30

[mandough]

I don't know about the Korg. I use the Boss TU-2. It has settings for half step down, whole step down, minor third down, and two bass guitar tunings as well as the standard.
In shows, I use standard, and plan on having annother guitar tuned a half step down.
For acoustic, try DADGAD(From the top to the bottom). It will twist your mind in new directions, and give you all kinds of overtones, and let you play Celtic music MUCH more easily.

[dennisobell]

jeje said:

I have a Korg-30 electronic tuner, how do I tune "1 step down", or "half step down" with it? If any of you are familiar with it, please help

edit: that's Korg GA-30

I don't know if that tuner has alternate settings, but just tuning directly to the desired alternate will do the trick if you are maintaining the standard EADGBE interval. I keep one of my guitars one-half down, thereby giving me Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Bb and Eb. It certainly gives an interesting character to some songs. "I'm Only Sleeping" by the Beatles really gets a lot of it's flavor from this tuning, IMHO (and makes it much easier to play, BTW!).

[dennisobell]

mandough said:

I don't know about the Korg. I use the Boss TU-2. It has settings for half step down, whole step down, minor third down, and two bass guitar tunings as well as the standard.
In shows, I use standard, and plan on having annother guitar tuned a half step down.
For acoustic, try DADGAD(From the top to the bottom). It will twist your mind in new directions, and give you all kinds of overtones, and let you play Celtic music MUCH more easily.

Hey mandough,

That accoustic tuning seems really cool! Is that a historical tuning for Celtic music in general or did you discover that on your own? I've got to try that!

[hcoll]

...maybe someday...who knows....

...right now I have enough problems working with the standard tuning...E-A-D-G-B-E....

[mandough]

The DADGAD tuning has been around since the 60s in popular Celtic music usage, but was probaby first used as soon as someone figured it out after the advent of the sixth string on guitars. That makes it and most of the other tunings that are possible on a six string an average of 400 years old, give or take 50 or so. Do a search on "Zan Mcleod" who is one of the premier players to use DADGAD, and annother is Al Petteway. Either of these guys can open your ears to a new world.

Annother thing to do for a lark is to get an old 12 string you don't mind modifying. Use the first 10 string pegs from the top, and leave the bottom ones blank (the high E ones). This makes it a ten string. Take the two high E tuners away so they don't rattle, leaveing you with ten once again. Replace the two B strings with the high E strings, then tune it thus from the bottom to the top:

ee-aa-DD-GG-CC

This makes the bottom four string pairs into an Octave Mandolin, and the top four string pairs into a Mandocello ! ! ! ! ! Try THAT for Celtic music ! !

[dennisobell]

mandough said:

The DADGAD tuning has been around since the 60s in popular Celtic music usage, but was probaby first used as soon as someone figured it out after the advent of the sixth string on guitars. That makes it and most of the other tunings that are possible on a six string an average of 400 years old, give or take 50 or so. Do a search on "Zan Mcleod" who is one of the premier players to use DADGAD, and annother is Al Petteway. Either of these guys can open your ears to a new world.

Annother thing to do for a lark is to get an old 12 string you don't mind modifying. Use the first 10 string pegs from the top, and leave the bottom ones blank (the high E ones). This makes it a ten string. Take the two high E tuners away so they don't rattle, leaveing you with ten once again. Replace the two B strings with the high E strings, then tune it thus from the bottom to the top:

ee-aa-DD-GG-CC

This makes the bottom four string pairs into an Octave Mandolin, and the top four string pairs into a Mandocello ! ! ! ! ! Try THAT for Celtic music ! !

Whoa!!!-great info, mandough. I'm going to take your advice and do a little research on my own. Thanks!