New Social Group For CGDAEG and other deviants

[John McGann]

New Social Group For CGDAEG and other deviants
(http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/group.php?do=view&groupid=73)

[catmandu2]

Now that, I'll join...

[Barbara Shultz]

Now, a social group for deviants? :))

I'm pretty slow, if NST is a deviant guitar tuning, which is a guitar tuning for an instrument with 6 strings, where do 4 & 5 coursed instruments fit in.... in other words, what tuning on an OM or cittern would be considered a deviant of NST?

Barb

[catmandu2]

Barb-

That's an interesting question. Check out John's post regarding experimentation with tunings. I wonder, too, where the point of departure is: is it double-course instruments, or fiths-tuned instruments. For example, with guitar there are several "non-standard" tunings that are quite standard (G, D[E], variants of C, DADGAD, and so on). Then, there are variations on these, similar to old-time banjo where a single string may be tweaked for a given song. Personally, while I use a wealth of non-standard (anything other than EADGBE or DADGBE) tunings on guitar, I rarely use anything other than fifths on CBOM or slight deviation with zook. I have, however, experimented with DFCGDA, CGCGDA, and EbGCGDA on a 6-course cittern, but still basically 5ths..

[John McGann]

Now, a social group for deviants? :))


Why, that'd be the entire Mandolin Café, but yes, those of us deviants who like to sometimes swerve off the road into other zones apart from GDAE, let's say (that covers a lot of ground...) :))

I guess as soon as you go 5/10 string, you ain't no part of nothin' and thus one of us :) but ALL are welcome of course!

[groveland]

Count me in. Fifths-tuning rules, no matter how many strings! The more the merrier. I can see FCGDAE, too. Or the holy grail, CGDAEB, when technically feasible without injuring the player. :grin:

[catmandu2]

"I guess as soon as you go 5/10 string, you ain't no part of nothin'..."

So there it is, then...there is no standard. So, John...is this where I induldge my fanciful fits of nonconformity regarding ALL strings? I have this compulsion to "deviate" (as it were) from regularity in virtually everything, except bass...and mando. There was a time when I was learning OT banjo when I was freaking out about remembering tunings; I was desperately seeking some kind of heuristic device or some system of ordering all the tunes in all the tunings on all the instruments.. Someone sent me the link to that ~20 page compendium of tunings for OT banjo...which helped somewhat in ordering the tunings, but was especially helpful in alleviating my anxiety by validating my need for so many tunings! Not sure why I'm no longer haunted by this--I guess I don't play much OT banjo anymore or the Fahey/Kottke stuff I was obssessed with.

Maybe I shouldn't even be tempting fate like this...with the CBOMs. Maybe screwing around with alt. tunings with CBOMs is a slippery slope back toward the perplexing issue of making order out of chaos...maybe I should withdraw my membership!??? Yikes..

[John McGann]

"I guess as soon as you go 5/10 string, you ain't no part of nothin'..."

So there it is, then...there is no standard. So, John...is this where I induldge my fanciful fits of nonconformity regarding ALL strings? I have this compulsion to "deviate" (as it were) from regularity in virtually everything, except bass...and mando.

Well, some folks have very elastic minds, i.e. the late, GREAT Michael Hedges, who used about 42 tunings and knew the names of each note on every string in every tuning- a composer who played the guitar and not a guitar operator.

If only i could think like that! My little brain can handle the guitar in standard tuning; I can use DADGAD in a relatively limited way, and 5ths tuning is fine; beyond that, I can deal with basics of modal tunings, but if I am to be "unlimited" in my limited way, it's "regular tunings" for me. This is due to the fact that I'm an improvisor and I "think notes and chords" rather than boxes and shapes (although I do use those some too)...

As a professional transcriber, I understand a variety of tunings and often decode complex open guitar tunings, and I can find what a player is doing...but to INVENT and be free in those tunings is another kettle of fish altogether...

I abandoned a long flirtation with pedal steel as I just couldn't wrap my mind around all the many changes. I should have started when I was 8!

So, possibly an answer is to get to know one tuning really really well... This CGDAEG is great for extending mando knowledge, since strings 5-2 are octave mando.

[catmandu2]

Oh yeah...Michael. For a while there, I was intent on playing Arial Boundaries...and Rickover's Dream: the tuning I used for them was the same--some C or G variant similar to some Kottke stuff--may not have been exactly what Michael devised, but it was close and rendered most of the elements in those pieces, I think...but the specialized percussive techniques required for those pieces, like flamenco, wasn't something I developed reliably, so...no more Arial Boundaries obviously! I still do play Ragamuffin, but that's in standard DADGAD.. I agree with something John McLaughlin said about guitar technique: that flamenco is "the best." I presume he means that it provides the most devices with which to render musical elements--many being rhythmic. I studied flamenco guitar for several years, but eventually gave up; it's like with Michael Hedges' approach--highly specialized--perhaps more the domain for folks with skill and patience enough to exploit a single system; (if you can play like that, no need for tunings other than standard...but I totally digress).

I'm like you in that I would like to know a system well enough to make complete sense of it--to be fluid in improvising. But...then there's this vexing quality about a box with its own, open-tuned resonance...so alluring.

(I gave up pedal steel because after playing it for 20 minutes, my left hand didn't want to move from its fixed "holding the steel" form; I figured there were better things to do with the left hand! Also, because toting the instrument along with my Fender Super Reverb got old--in about one season!--that rig must have weighed over a hundred pounds..)

M.H. was indeed a genius; I'm definitely not, which is why I have so much anxiety about playing all these different tunings... I think I happily gave it all up--the Michael Hedges stuff, anyway...when I took up tenor banjo. I think that's one reason why I like the bass so much, too--it limits me and compels me toward the dicipline I need.

And, as you say, when selecting one system by which to devote one's self...wide 5ths--like 5- and 6-course cittern--is defintely the way to go. It may be altered to render some cool modal things a la OT banjo. And the additional courses provide the desirable added range, etc.