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Doug Manring’s Guitar Tunings
C G C G C D This is my primary tuning. My regular tuning, if you will. Roughly 80% of my material is in this tuning and I usually solo in it as well. Though in the past, I felt it was a particularly Strat-oriented voicing, recently I’ve been using Gibsons tuned this way with equally rewarding results. Acoustic steel string guitar also sounds wonderful tuned this way.
D A D G A D I also use this tuning a great deal. It offers the advantage of having three center strings (ADG) the same as standard tuning, so many familiar chord shapes will work, and the accidental blends that occur with the other strings make for some pretty exotic and beautiful sounding chords. This is a good tuning for someone new to tunings to try.
D A D G B E I use DADGAD as a base setting when I play with the Hipshot Open Tuner bridge modification. Levers on the 1st, 5th and 6th strings allow me to shift back and forth between their assigned pitches, and a bar extending out the back of the guitar allows me to pull the 2nd string up a step, same as a Parsons-White B-Bender.
A A D G B D This tuning also offers a familiar triad, the DGB strings, with which many standard chord positions will partially work. This provides full bodied voicings that work especially well with Gibson-type guitars.
A A E G A E A power tuning that offers an open A in three octaves. It takes some work to learn how to navigate, but the results can be very exciting. The sympathetic harmonics are outstanding.
C G D G B D Another good tuning for someone new to it. It’s hard to play anything that sounds bad with this tuning, so it is popular with many people. Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, Joe Walsh, and Keith Richards most notably used this for many Stones classics (without the low C).
© 2001 Doug Manring |
