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playing in an open tuning: why does it always have to sound boring????

below, you'll find my original post. i feel that it may have generated some unintended friction,
therefore i have stricken out the text.

i apologize for any demeaning tone that may have been inferred. i have the utmost respect for everyone here, and in the future i will aspire to be more critical of my own opinion.

have a great day guys!

i play a three string, fretless slide CBG. i love it, and may never go back to fretting notes again (apart from recording some leads for my album)

but why is it that i often see an "established" cigar box guitar player, with a decent web site and album, it turns out that their idea of playing sounds like endless noodling in the same key, song after song..?

my greatest challenge, and i meet it head on, is to work with a guitar that has no frets and is tuned to an open chord, and play in any key i feel like. i mean, you really have to work at it to get good at chording with a slide, but i do it in every song.

it's the same reason i never got in to mountain dulcimers. the sound of a melody in front of the same drone notes for five minutes drives me crazy. how about some DYNAMICS??

i play covers and write originals, and i rarely come across any songs in the key of A (which my guitar is tuned), and neither do i shoehorn them all to fit. i enjoy playing each song in the key it was written.

it's a little frustrating to hear about a "good" cigar box guitar player, and it turns out he's just playing noodley little melodies on one string for minutes on end, continually strumming the other strings, never changing key. and it continues, song after song.

maybe it's just me, but when a song doesn't change key, at LEAST for the chorus, it gets pretty monotonous (literally, mono-tonal) and VERY repetetive.

having an open-tuned instrument does NOT mean you're a slave to that key...

what do you guys think?

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Permalink Reply by Cigar Box Nation on May 20, 2010 at 9:51am

Meh, I've been playing exactly the same way you described for almost two decades. I simply change my tunings once in a while from open G to open A...sometimes to a low grungy open E. If you play like a badassmutherfucker, the audience doesn't mind the same tunings thru the whole show.

Learn to play like a badassmutherfucker.

shane

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Permalink Reply by Hip Bone Bellaire on May 20, 2010 at 9:54am

Shane--- Is that the name of your new teaching DVD? "Learn to play like a badassmutherfucker"

Shane Speal said:

Meh, I've been playing exactly the same way you described for almost two decades. I simply change my tunings once in a while from open G to open A...sometimes to a low grungy open E. If you play like a badassmutherfucker, the audience doesn't mind the same tunings thru the whole show.

Learn to play like a badassmutherfucker.

shane

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Permalink Reply by Michael Gajeski on May 20, 2010 at 10:13am

This is why your the king. lmao

Shane Speal said:

Meh, I've been playing exactly the same way you described for almost two decades. I simply change my tunings once in a while from open G to open A...sometimes to a low grungy open E. If you play like a badassmutherfucker, the audience doesn't mind the same tunings thru the whole show.

Learn to play like a badassmutherfucker.

shane

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Permalink Reply by East Texas Tramps on May 20, 2010 at 10:17am

once again, i pipe in with my bullshit and the pages fill up... i can't help myself. btw, this is all kinda fucking lame... shut the fuck up and play your badassmotherfucking cbg.

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Permalink Reply by Wes "I'm Baaaaack" Yates on May 20, 2010 at 1:54pm

Enter George Thorogood.

-WY

Shane Speal said:

Meh, I've been playing exactly the same way you described for almost two decades. I simply change my tunings once in a while from open G to open A...sometimes to a low grungy open E. If you play like a badassmutherfucker, the audience doesn't mind the same tunings thru the whole show.

Learn to play like a badassmutherfucker.

shane

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Permalink Reply by Nathan King on May 20, 2010 at 3:29pm

YES!

Wes Yates said:

Enter George Thorogood.

-WY

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Sprague (Knotlenny) on May 20, 2010 at 3:30pm

Interesting topic. Funny, Reading this I initially had the same moment of self-reflection that Keni Lee did . . ."mmm. maybe that's me?" hah-ha. I guess that's the nature of musicians.

The truth is, that I have come to think of CBG's (at least the way I play 'em) as almost a diatonic instrument - like a harmonica. I keep a couple handy in different "power chord" tunings. So I'm not continually plowing along in the same key.

For some reason my favorites have evolved into Ab and Bb. ??

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Permalink Reply by Keni Lee Burgess on May 21, 2010 at 1:15am

Yes, diatonic instrument is a great way to describe it. One tuned in a Spanish configuration (5135), another in a Vestapol configuration (1351), and a capo. Just like Earl Scruggs and his banjo.

Knotlenny said:

Interesting topic. Funny, Reading this I initially had the same moment of self-reflection that Keni Lee did . . ."mmm. maybe that's me?" hah-ha. I guess that's the nature of musicians.

The truth is, that I have come to think of CBG's (at least the way I play 'em) as almost a diatonic instrument - like a harmonica. I keep a couple handy in different "power chord" tunings. So I'm not continually plowing along in the same key.

For some reason my favorites have evolved into Ab and Bb. ??

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Permalink Reply by HOLLOWBELLY on May 21, 2010 at 3:01am

well, I'd reply to this post (but I'm too busy playing like a badassmutherfucker).

In the key of A.

with noodly bits between the strumming.

;0)

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Permalink Reply by W.M. Peterson on May 21, 2010 at 3:25am

:) !

HOLLOWBELLY said:

well, I'd reply to this post (but I'm too busy playing like a badassmutherfucker).

In the key of A.

with noodly bits between the strumming.

;0)

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Permalink Reply by Cigar Box Nation on May 21, 2010 at 3:29am

Play like a badassmutherfucker

werner said:

:) !

HOLLOWBELLY said:
well, I'd reply to this post (but I'm too busy playing like a badassmutherfucker).

In the key of A.

with noodly bits between the strumming.

;0)

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ottie(Skydog)Noble on May 21, 2010 at 3:34am

My concern is that all this open tuning has caused the ozone to to be destory just look at the damage it has caused .Rains like we have never seen and not to mention the Nashville flood just pay back because of the open tuning.

For god sake this is a hobby for most of us.