Posted: 19 Jul 2009 8:58 am
Mark -Mark van Allen wrote:Although, to an extent, you can eventually play anything you want on almost any tuning, I think the choice of number of strings and basic tuning comes down to what you're hearing in your head that you want to sound like.
If it's the sweet Hawaiian direction, or Byrdish early country, a 6th tuning might be definitely the way to go.
The availability of more chord and note choices makes 7 and 8 strings more attractive for those styles.
On the other hand, the Helms style is easily accessible with just 6 strings, and of course Byrd could pull wonders out of 6...
Western Swing seems to really benefit from additional strings, I can imagine putting a lifetime of study into Tom Morrel's 10 string tuning and never finding everything he did.
Rock and blues seem to really sit well in D or E tunings, and 6 strings offer plenty to work with.
Many of the Nashville players use open D (R,5,R,3,5,R) on reso sessions rather than the open G most bluegrassers use.
I remember being very impressed when we did some shows with the John Cowan band at how differently Randy Kohrs played on electric lap in open G than he did on Dobro. Really rocking.
For me, C6 and E13 8 string tunings for the classic stuff, and E on the 6 string for rock and blues, switching between my old Tonemaster and Asher E.H. Jr. (The two pickups on the Asher are really handy.)
The "limitations" of the 6 string G tuning to me are really inspiring, forcing you to find various ways to get partial minors and chord extensions, combining open strings with closed strings, etc. to get color tones and various scales not immediately apparent.
I think a lot of people look at the straight bar chords and a few open position scales and don't dig far enough. There's endless meat in open G.
This is one of the best posts on tunings that I've read on this board. It really does depend on what you are going for. Thank you for your thoughtful post.