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What tunings do you use?

Since I discovered the world of homemade guitars, I've been struggling a bit with what is the best tuning for a cigar box guitar. I've tried various open tunings, but they seem very limiting, for myself of course. I've finally gravitated to 4-strings or six strings, and use the standard guitar tuning for the top four strings. E-B-G-D for 4-strings. 3-string guitars I tune to E-B-G. Six-string guitars I keep with the standard E-B-G-D-A-E.

But I'd be interested in hearing from those who use open tunings, and why you do.

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Permalink Reply by J.Rob on May 8, 2015 at 7:12am

But Dane wah it is too easy for my phone App.(me in my whiny voice) Lol!

You are right on the money in Learning the circle of 5 ths chart my friend.

It comes down to me being thickheaded are too much of a slacker or combo of both!

:) :) :)

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on May 8, 2015 at 2:04am

3 string mainstays: GDg and DGB. Secondaries: CGC, DAD, EBE, sharp or flat variations of those and ADF#

4 strings: GDgB, DGBE, DGBD

2 strings: GD and Gg.

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Permalink Reply by John Sawyer on May 8, 2015 at 2:38am

Most of mine are GDg, though i also use DF#a occasionally, as some guitars sound better at open D....

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on May 8, 2015 at 4:09am

Please tell me how musically limited I am using G-D-G:

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/video/oily-s-guitar-lounge-6-take-an-...

Or Bb-F-Bb-C#:

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/video/oily-s-guitar-lounge-number-4-j...

Or halfway between A-D-F# and Bb-Eb-G:

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/video/bouree-bia-or-broke-bach-go-tul...

Or Bb-F-Bb-D:

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/video/oily-s-guitar-lounge-grandpa-s-...

Or A-D-G-C-E-A:

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/video/oily-s-guitar-lounge-11-dying-e...

I'm curious...

BTW, Ford was spot on. >:-E

Your only limitations are the interactions of your mind with your fingers with your tools.

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Permalink Reply by Uncle John on May 8, 2015 at 12:14pm

Ron, you are not limited. You are special.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on May 8, 2015 at 3:16pm

I bet you say that to all the girls.

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Permalink Reply by jeff maurer on May 8, 2015 at 4:30am

I only use AEA tuning and dont bother about limitations. When I first learned about drop D tuning [6 string guitar] it really threw me off and took a few months to figure it out. The only limitations are those we put on ourselves.

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Permalink Reply by Dane Donato on May 8, 2015 at 4:38am

Thanks for the thoughts, guys.

So you understand me, I once had a friend who was a traditional fiddle player (but played an electric fiddle). We were talking about sight reading while learning a new tune, and he gave me this look....he never learned to read music.

I was talking to the composer of a rock opera in Cambridge some years back in a bar and club called the Middle East. I asked him to see his score, and he gave me this blank look. There is no score, he said.

I come from a formal musical training background (as a double reed player, primarily), so I still need to wrap my head around other ways of looking at and performing music. I ran into that when I went to Berklee College, as well; the figured bass was not their thing lol. Part of it was of course making a student take counterpoint and harmony all over again, the Berklee way :)

I do think that approaching this folk instrument in the same way as a standard 6-string as a point of departure makes the most sense to me, though it is only for me. Each person chooses his own path.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on May 8, 2015 at 6:08am

Dane,

Didn't mean to be a ball-buster, but...

I get where you're coming from. I came from playing 6 stringer acoustics and electrics, country, blues, country rock, hard rock, jazz, classical mush-mash. Nothing formal. Realized very quickly on my first 3-banger that my 35 years of 6 string muscle memory only helped AFTER I tossed that particular rule book, and just started trying to make music. Not trying to duplicate note-for-transcripted-note. Just CREATION and EXPLORATION. It was incredibly freeing, and really fed back in an important way into my 6-string playing both solo and in bands.

I approach CBGs as improv. And improve.

You can analyze it all later. Just press play. Discover. Your brain is highly prepared to recognize. Try to find those recognition points on half a guitar, tuned DGB as the guys above say. You'll start looking at a 6-banger in standard tuning as a series of 3 and 4 stringed instruments in different,adjacent and overlapping tunings, all right there for you to mess with, just like you explained your 4-stringer bass tuning to your accomplished musician friends. Or, go the other way, and do weird 6-string tunings; some of the kewlest ones are in C, with several internal drones. Celtic guitar uses the same approach, typically in D, or G.

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Permalink Reply by Dane Donato on May 8, 2015 at 11:14am

Naw, you were not being a ball buster. No worries.

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Permalink Reply by TN Twang on May 8, 2015 at 10:20am

Took a correspondence course in theory from Berklee in 1965. Never been the same since... (They probably haven't been either.)

Definition of a half step: 2 oboes playing the same note.

Definition of a whole step: 2 English horns playing the same note.

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Permalink Reply by Dane Donato on May 8, 2015 at 11:15am

Ha. I can tell music jokes all day, and string players are usually the butt of most of them. How many guitarists does it take to change a light bulb? 3. One to change it, and two to say "I can do that."