En Rhythm

After my obsessive swell of country music, i rendered a new alternate tuning drawing from multiple sources. i call it ‘High Gsus2’.

I have currently had a swell of interest in Resonator guitars, and slide guitar in general. So a very popular tuning for that is ‘Open G’ (DGdgbd’), and for resonator guitars specifically is ‘High G’(GBDgbd’). The high G tuning more specifically needs the guitar’s contsruction to handle the tension of tuning the low E and A up to G and B, or in my case i have light bass strings on one of my 2 acoustic guitars. Stumbling onto an article of people favouring open g outside of the slide guitar world i found that Keith Richards liked to play in open G, but without the low D, thusly playing a 5 string guitar. Doing this he kept the lowest interval the 5th which is a very convienient one in some guitar aspects. Months prior i had the pleasure of meeting Doyle Dykes and on two pieces he used Gsus2(DGdgad’) which has its very interesting uses. Thoses uses not excluding the ability to bend up to the major chord - which i find more amusing than neccessary- but also gives a nice neutral playing structure to build on.

So after playing around with all three tunings i have found a nice mixed tuning that gives me a nice medium of Expression.

first, tune the low E up to G. this can be accomplished without unneccessary tension on most electrics unless playing on particularly heavy strings,  but if playing on an acoustic the string should be replaced with a lighter one. Either way the string should be no heavier than .050. That can be purchased by any competant music store as a single string. you can choose depending on your preferance of string tension, i prefer playing on as heavy a string as possible. wow thats a big step one.

second, tune the low A down to G. This will actually produce a unison between the two strings. One string with lower tension than normal, and one with higher tension than normal.

third, re tune d and g. the change in neck tension will throw the other strings from being in tune. Make sure the intervals, between G d g, are a perfectly tempered 5chord, and that the octaves are clear.

Fourth, tune b down to a. you can do this by tuning the a perfect fifth from middle d.

Fifth, tune e down to d’. this should be checked to be in tune as an octave to middle d and also make sure it is tempereed to a 5chord between d a d’.

it sounds more complicated than it really is since all notes revolve around perfect fifth but it produces a wide range of expression when playing. especially is the player is accostumed to using behind the string bends to move the suspensions and/or has an electric equipped with a b-bender/g-bender. and make sure to have fun using the doubled low G as a pedal point with the power chord arrangement next to it.

cheers

Soundwaves are finicky.

Temperment takes time.

I dislike Major thirds.

Two days into a new year and i can feel the unpredictability of events begin to seat itself in the path my life is takeing. 

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A/N: 3 days later my job of 2.5 years let me go.