Working Over a Guitar, Part 2: More Standard-er Tunings

I figured out a solution to our first problem. Let me show you some very standard type of professional guitar tunings, and also make some explanations about some concepts professional's use when stringing a guitar, and then we can talk gear. I still can't figure out a way to explain my argument about guitar tuning without beating the bandwagon to pieces, and it is very complex material, so we'll leave that bit be for the moment, and we'll get down to the way you'd see a typical rock-guitar, country-guitar or metal-guitar tuned and strung.

The first thing you need to understand is that no matter what type of guitar you are playing, no matter what kind of pickups it has, and no matter how you are amplifying your puppy, you need to use at least medium-wind strings. It takes a bit more work when you're starting out because you have to build more hand strength, but they play better, they last longer, and they have more tone. It might be better to say, "they produce a tone at all," because even medium-light strings don't sound like much, even if they're turned up to eleven.

The problem is amplified if you're using a light-construction guitar like a Fender, and that is the most commonly used form of guitar, even by professionals, excepting in the case of jazz music. A solid Fender in the mid-price range does not cost like a professional instrument, plays just fine, and is very light and easy on your spinal tap. They are not garbage instruments, but they have their limitations. We'll discuss the point more at a later juncture, maybe even at a later juncture in this article.

Now, an exception to the "medium-wind," rule might be for a guitarist who is doing all lead-work on the guitar. In that case a medium-light or light on your highest strings, string 1 and 2, the ones with wires strung on them, can be a nice thing to put good bends in and get the right kind of squealing effects. On a Fender, you are going to have very little tone in this case on those strings, but Fender electric guitars also respond - across the board - really well in the high range, particularly with some expensive single-coil pickups dumped in them.

So, you won't sound like a loser with medium wounds on 6, 5, 4 and 3, and even lights on 2 and 1, if you are sticking to lead parts. You might even be able to get away with extra-lights on the top two strings, and you'd just have to run the experiment. I have never tried the experiment, and I don't know anyone who has tried it.

Another thing is that most guitarists tune their 6 string to a C2 these days, and one option is to string that 6 with a heavy or medium-heavy string to get the mud out of that 6 string. Some players, particularly in metal when a "big-crunch," is needed, string a heavy on the six and a medium-heavy on the 5. Dimebag Darrell from Pantera used to do this as a lead player, with fabulous effect.

Now, let us disambiguate about Pantera and Dimebag Darrell. Part one, I don't find hardly any of Pantera's lyrics offensive to even the degree of some of the other music I have already mentioned. Part two, Dimebag Darrell was an incredible metal guitarist, one out of a handful of the best metal guitarists ever. Part three, Pantera rocked. Part four - yes - Darrell was shot at a show by some crazy schizophrenic and that is fouled up. Part five, Pantera incited some of that "stuffin'" and there were people who were permanently maimed at Pantera shows other than Dimebag Darell - frequently.

I didn't even want to mention Pantera or Darrell, but he was really the big proponent of heavy strings on the bottom of a guitar and mediums the rest of the way up. Further, you may have figured something out from our disambiguation: That crazy schizophrenic murdered a guy, and that is dead wrong. That crazy schizophrenic does not receive NGRI-status from Gwyd. However, people who wind up getting fouled up that way generally have some of their own rubbish to look through more insightfully, and this case is no exception.

When it comes to rock styles, there are 3 basic tunings you would look at in terms of pro-material. The first is called, "Sawmill Tuning." Sawmill tuning is butt-easy to play rock in, and it creates a very nice sound for both lead and rhythm players. STP used the sound on a solid Fender Tele (Interstate Love Song is an example) and your only problem there is that the combination of the tuning and the very bright Tele sound requires a limiting head and a good digital limiting gate when a fuzz-filter is applied, or you will bust a lot of DAT tapes or people's ear drums if you are using it at live shows. Not a suggested form of entertainment.

So the tuning would generally be: C2 F2 C3 F3 Bb3 (A#3) C4. There are fifteen million variations of the Sawmill tuning, but even though that particular one looks very irregular, playing rock in that tuning is as easy as sleeping in the studio closet. Very, very easy, and what is wrong with a short cut occasionally? - and also a very nice kind of sound.

The next version is a common variation of the Sawmill tuning that has a very interesting character of its own. Led Zeppelin as a group really started hard-rock as hard-rock, although you could point to earlier groups like Cream or the Animals. Many people know this tuning as "Dad-gad," but you will more often see this used today in what most people call, "C-gad." It is an open modal tuning, and there are some real advantages in hard-rock, the principle one being an open root-five-octave on the 6, 5 and 4 strings, which makes it a lot easier to play your standard rockin' "power chords.

C-gad looks like this: C2 G2 C3 F3 G3 C4. This is also a pretty good metal tuning, as power chords get used very often in metal, but in both the hard-rock and metal venue you are going to get a very Dorian-sounding minor-key tonality if you're working the fretboard in an ordinary way. Jimmy Page has repeatedly told people that he used the Dad-gad tuning only a few times in his recording career because of that quality of this tuning. That sound can be fun, but it isn't fun for 3 hours, and even people who don't know what Dorian means might kill you and your security if you play this way for 3 hours. Don't do it. It's annoying.

When it comes to country, most country players play in an Open G Tuning, meaning the intervals are tuned to an Open G-Major Chord. The problem is that if you set it up like so: D2 G2 D3 G3 B3 D4, you get a very weak form of a G major chord because of the bass note being on the fifth of the chord. There is no good tone in Open G Tuning for a guitar in a good range for a normal bass string on a guitar. The solution is to string a wire string to a G3 on the bass string, and that is Nashville Standard tuning. So: G3 G2 D3 G3 B3 D4. I'm going to have to buy a triple-beam and watch out for red lights to avoid the Nashville Ninjas. I'm giving away trade secrets here. LOL!

Actually, I love good Nashville music, the adjective "good," being an unfortunate necessity in front of the "Nashville music"-term. Nashville is the least seedy music epi-center on the planet, and some of the best chip-punchers on the planet do most of their work in Nashville for that exact reason. Further, ethical music production in Nashville takes a ton of talent, and if you are making bread there then you know music real - real well. They do not take nonsense for peanuts in Nashville either, although that is true anywhere among great musicians.

So we move on to metal styles. Most real good metal players actually don't use a typical dropped-C tuning, but there is a common workable variation that produces a good sound, and that is: C2 G2 C3 F3 G3 D4. However, there are better ways of working this out, and it has to do with fuzz-filters.

Usually what a rhythm guitarist in a metal band is going for is a power chord where you can't hear any of the individual notes, just a highly compressed fuzzy power chord sound. A group like Meshuggah took this to the point on their landmark Chaosphere album to where what you hear of the rhythm guitar is a fuzzy, matte sort of scraping. Since you don't need or even want to hear much in terms of tonality, and what you need is crunch, the real way to pull off a metal rhythm guitar is with what is called a "hardcore tuning."

The basic idea would look something like this, although there are schools of thought and many variations: C2 G2 C3 Db3 (C#3) G3 D4. So now you include the 4th string in your power chord, and you get a crunch that is mean-evil because of that half-step and tritone in your power chord. If you use a fuzz-filter in the typical metal fashion, you don't get an avant-garde chord structure, you get a mean-evil crunch.

Another suggestion I just have to make with metal guitar has to do with "low-rider," tunings. The Ibanez seven-string guitar is an awful piece of equipment. Ibanez makes some amazing guitars, but any of their seven-strings are more than underwhelming. The best solution is to find a used Fender Jaguar Baritone Guitar. Fender plans to re-release the baritone make - I think - but it is out of production right now. That Jaguar is light for its tone range, wasn't expensive new, and plays great for the price.

Gibson also makes a Les Paul Baritone Standard, and again, I think there are plans to re-release the make. However, in the industry the joke about the Les Paul Baritone is "5 feet four inches and 140 pounds." It does sound better than the Jaguar Baritone, but it is a real heavy son of a gun. Also, the neck-scale is longer and the neck is wider, and that makes it sound real good, but it is not easy on the hands.

My recommendation is that if you choose to play Baritone guitar, then you need to stick to playing Baritone guitars. That isn't happy, but the strings on the Baritone guitar are far denser, and the neck-scale is completely different. Switching back and forth will be at least confusing, and could at worst lead to you damaging your hands very badly. Still, for metal, a Baritone guitar is the roxxors. Killer crunch, particularly with a hardcore tuning, and that might look something like this: A2 E2 A3 Bb3 (A#3) E3 B4. (My octave notation is getting fouled up somewhere, but I'm close, and I can't figure out where I'm calculating wrong. Sorry 'bout that.) (Author's Edit: I figured out where my octave calculations were wrong. The bottom notes will be one octave lower than originally notated, and the top note also an octave lower, like so: A1 E1 A2 Bb2 (A#2) E3 B3. That is mean-evil, brutal metal crunch.)

Another tuning that works well for blues-style players, or people who play hard-rock with a heavy blues edge is an open C tuning, like so: C2 G2 C3 G3 C4 E4. I know how tempting it is going to be to tune that top string down a half step to an Eb to get a "cross-note tuning," as blues is sort of temporally minor-key - sorta - but try working the fretboard with the major third at the top. Trust me on it. A few weeks of knackering with that and your blues squealing will be making the ladies squeal.

More to come. I'm going to do my gear wishlist, and then maybe we'll talk jazz or - I don't know - we shall see.