hi guys, i was wondering if any one has some tips on using open tunings without getting locked into the certain ethnic kind of sound that so many open tunings seem to support. i know that a lot of that a lot of this has to do with droning and the fact that most tunings seem to support certain tonalities more than others. i myself kind of like dadgad more than devs tuning since its more ambiguous sounding in terms of being used for maj or min sounds but i always find myself sounding celtic or eastern which i'd really like to get away from. is my problem perhaps that i need to study the tuning more focusing on note choices and placement or could it be something else. the main thing that ive noticed after studying dadgad and cgcgce is that there are a lot of symettrical note patterns which help to support cool linear style playing and scale shape patterns are similar on certain strings which makes for easy memorization. thats all cool but chord wise things can become limiting for certain scale degrees.

hmmmm.... my take on all this open tuning stuff is... I don't use them. Drop-D (or detuned versions thereof) is the most I do. Why? Because I spent years learning the notes on the fretboard. The notes, not fingering patterns. And I think in notes. If I want a lydian mode, I play it in standard tuning. I know where the notes are, and I know how a lydian works, in music theory. Now, if I mess up with the tuning, I sorta feel I lose control, because I don't know anymore automatically where the notes are.

But that's just me...

Tammo

Yeah, I feel pretty much the same way. I think that an open tuning can really enhance a certain song, and I am interested in using them in that context to add a unique flavour of guitar to the track but I wouldn't like to throw all training and practise to the wind and dedicate myself to using an open tuning all the time. I feel that unless you practised eight hours a day it would just be too ridiculously limiting. Devin does good with it but he's been using that tuning for over ten years now. For someone to decide that this is what they want to do, they have years of meandering without getting any good results, as far as I could see.

I personally think it is enough of an undertaking to learn scale and mode patterns in every position in standard tuning without having to go and do it again in an open tuning. But if someone has never bothered with that stuff before and are interested in learning them all in an open tuning, then so be it.... But I'd wanna be damn sure that it's the tuning for me and has the sound that I love because you'll never be able to pick up someone else's guitar and just bash it out, you'll be lost. Anyhoo... That's my take.

in all honesty its not the scales and ability to play lead in a tuning that worry me( if you were to study how the notes actually lay in out in cgcgce and dadgad its really not so hard as people might think). in my opinion too many players rely on positional playing in the up and down sense but it is more one the compositional side of things where i have more difficulties. if i start jamming things get a little to ethnic sounding where as when i listen to devin i dont really hear that. with him i just hear really cool lines that hardly sound like hes in an open tuning at all. perhaps i just need to study some of his tabs to see how hes doing things and structuring his riffs.

Yeah, I think that this is because Devin doesn't jam with the tuning. It seems as though he uses it more to add a hugeness to hsi riffs, which are essentially straightforward power chord styled riffs, but in this tuning he gets to bang on all the other strings and let them ring out make a HUGE sound. Check out my tabs for the new SYL shit on the Strapping forum, that'll give you a decent sort of an idea of how he does that shit. *Jeez, I hope mentioning that doesn't get this forum locked...*

yeah from looking previously at some of devs tabs i did notice that he does a lot of power chord drop d style riffs but its in his single note riffs and playing where he really shines. when looking at deep peace and deadhead, away, etc you can really see how the different interval layout of his cgcgce tuning allows him to create some of the most amazing musical moments ive ever heard.