New Standard Tuning (Guitar/Fripp)

The Lounge Other Gear
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how you gonna “control” an audience if you can’t even control yourself or your instrument?

Fluency doesn’t mean that we play complicated stuff or know all the classics, it just means that you can say what you want to say exactly when you want to say it. This could mean/necessitate different levels of proficiency for different people.

The aim of that is to achieve a level of connection with the tool of expression (in this case a guitar) that allows us to follow through on what BB King said: no matter what you play, just make sure it’s the truth.

In Capoeira we say that we don’t train to do Capoeira, we train to remove the limitations that keep Capoeira from playing us. I view it similarly with instruments.

I agree that standard tuning is not necessary to achieve that connection, all that was argued earlier is that switching between tunings constantly might keep somebody from getting to know the instrument and hence hinder their ability to express themselves intentionally and/or intuitively on the instrument.

Finally, I’d also argue that music has little to nothing to do with control over anyone. It’s a form of expression that has the power to move. Express yourself and make sure it moves you, maybe someone else will be moved by it too then.

@Clancy not all here a response to you, hope that’s clear :slight_smile:

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I completely agree! Take Nick Drake’s Pink Moon or Joni Mitchell’s Blue for example. Absolute masterpieces and both of them change up the guitar tuning for almost every other song.

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You don’t even have to tune your guitar to enjoy playing it. :slight_smile:

What I mean is, if you want to speak a language to communicate with others, you need to know the words and at least some grammar. Music is the same.

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Just to add, I agree with and appreciate what you write here. And I’ve seen that happen particularly in classically trained musicians/instrumentalists (too rigidly caged into the norms of their genre). That said, to me proficiency and fluency on an instrument doesn’t necessarily mean that this fluency needs to be tied to (or even built on) western musical traditions. Apart from the intervallic tuning convention that is inherent to your average guitar (= it being organised in half steps), there is nothing about the instrument OR music theory, that dictates WHAT to play.

That discussion has been had in the theory thread on here. I think a major misconception about music theory is that it’s considered to be prescriptive in nature. But it really isn’t - or at least shouldn’t be. It’s primarily descriptive of what humanity has discovered about the relationships between frequencies and their effects on our psychospiritual states up to this point and secondly conceptual - in the sense that it is meant to orientate us in making decisions when playing music.

I agree that western music and western music theory can be affected by a certain hubris that makes it present itself like the only truth, however that misconception still shouldn’t stop us from getting to know our instruments properly.

I have a Qifteli, an Albanian folk instrument, that is microtonal and diatonic. So in playing that I will inherently be bound to the logic of that particular diatonic system, no matter how I tune the thing.

An average guitar is not microtonal and also not diatonic, which means it’s a lot more flexible BUT it is still tied to the western system of conceiving intervals across octaves…namely equal temperament. As such it’s tied to this Western convention, no matter how you tune it finally.

My point is: stick to whatever tuning you choose when learning the instrument so that you have some stability in learning the inherent logic of the instrument. In the second step, it’s been invaluable for me to learn the intervals of the harmonic series, what they are, why they are and how they can be constructed or expressed on a guitar. To make sense of this and REALLY learn to translate this knowledge to the instrument, for me I want to keep my tuning scheme stable so that I can embody that knowledge eventually.

None of this advocates prescriptive limitations as to what to play or how to play it.

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I understood where you were going with the comparison, but I disagree that music is the same. Of course knowing music theory helps in expressing yourself, but it’s not necessary at all imho. Just look at punk music for example. Sure, even punk follows musical rules and can be analysed musically, but what I’m saying is that you don’t have to know these rules to write a punk song. You just grab a guitar and mess around with one simple power chord shape.

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What’s a power chord?! I don’t think my guitar has that?!

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What I’m saying is that you don’t have to know that a power chord is made up of a fifth and and an octave to play it.
You don’t have to know what notes you’re singing in order to sing a melody.
You don’t have to know that it’s a 5/4 rhythm you’re playing in order to play it.
That’s all I’m trying to get at. It’s not a precondition to know what your doing to make great music. It helps, of course, but I just don’t think it’s necessary. And it’s up to each person to decide how they want to approach making music.

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K can anyone who’s tried out NST explain why the bass string/low string (actually highest string) is so low. Idk the term for these strings but that’s been the main thing confusing me. I heard somewhere that Fripp developed it so that you wouldn’t have to to use that string much.

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100% agree with you. But if someone shows you the power chord shape on a guitar without any further explanation or understanding and then you change to NST you’re pretty much fucked and the punk sound you were after is lost forever.

I guess it comes down to one’s ambitions on the instrument also…me personally, I WANT to know that a power chord is the 1 and 5, because then I can find and construct it on my own, no matter what. I never feel obliged to play it because I know it, but I’m stoked that I know it and know when to use it if I want ito use it.

I think we all agree, in the end play what sounds good to you!

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Exactly :slightly_smiling_face:
To get back on topic: I went to my local guitar shop today and got a new set of strings for trying out NST. I had to lift up the lowest string a bit, so it wouldn’t rattle, but other than that, my guitar handles the new tuning nicely.
I’ve been trained on classical guitar when I was young and stuck to standard tuning for my whole life. Still, NST somehow feels very natural to me, even after playing it only for a few hours so far. Good fun!

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Sound great! One worry I have with uneven tension (be that because of tuning or gauges or both) is that the neck could warp eventually…based on exactly no knowledge at all :joy: how’s the tension across strings and the playability for you?

I saw a dude once tune all six strings to the same note I believe…idea was that it would increase sympathetic resonance across strings. I would love to try that but wouldn’t know where to start with gauges and also worry about the neck too much.

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The fourth and sixth string feel significantly tighter, which makes bar chords a bit harder to pull off. The low C is pretty loose in comparison to standard, but it hasn’t bothered me so far. It’s kind of getting into bass guitar territory, which feels weird, but nice simultaneously.

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But if you want to play in that punk band (“communicating with others”), you better know the language (rhythm, harmony, melody, as simple as they might be in that particular genre), or you’ll be kicked out pretty quickly. :slight_smile:

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Lol, I disagree again, but I think we’re talking in circles, so I’ll leave it at that.

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I have plenty of recorded evidence that sounded “amazing” to me at the time, and that now I’m sooo embarrassed to have released… :sweat_smile:

What I mean is, to a certain extent , what sounds good (or not so good ) to you also depends a lot on your knowledge.

On a side note, that happens a lot in production/mixing/mastering as well. Your ability to hear/listen and react accordingly, gets better as you expand your knowledge.

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Again, that is a philosophical plight; the onus of which falls squarely on the individual, and extends to every single aspect of life.

I would agree, with a heavy heart, that lots of people struggle to see past what they have learned; especially when it is instilled in them from the vantage point of staunch fundamentalism, no matter the topic.

But that’s not me.

And willful ignorance is not the way forward.

I get together with my synth colleagues, once a week, and we make all kinds of wonderful, aimless noise, for the pure joy of it. We run a monthly after-hours record club, wherein we listen to the near 6 thousand albums we have amassed, covering every conceivable genre of music you can think of, foreign and domestic.

We do these things without pretense, and with every intention of surprising and challenging ourselves. Though we are able to draw comparisons, explain and expand upon what we discover, because we have a dedicated ourselves to the vocabulary and history of music, on all levels, from the notes to the actual physics of sound.

Conceptualism in art, while necessary, is a convenience—a lazy argument, that has a way of offending those who have strived for tangible knowledge, understanding, and perspective; and moreover, put themselves out there, and walked the walk.

I spoke to the logistics of using a particular alternate tuning, because I have actually applied myself on this front, and thought I might have some useful insight to offer, for the person who asked.

Cheers!

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:pray:

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That was a Lou Reed trick.

:wink:

Cheers!

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It’s because cello is tuned lower than guitar. In NST, the 4 lowest strings are tuned just like cello. CGDA. C being lowest, and lower than low E on standard tuning.

I read Fripp’s little story about some vision/phenomena appearing to him and whatever to inspire NST but really he tried to tune the guitar like a cello, and quickly realized he couldn’t tune the top 2 strings in 5ths without breaking them.

I’m 90% sure whoever played the opening guitar riff in this song had the lowest 4 strings tuned this way. Super easy to play it in this tuning. You should notice the lowest note is D, which is below E of standard tuning.

And of course here’s Bert Lams (California Guitar Trio, Robert Fripp String Quintet, etc.) playing Cello Suite 1 Prelude.

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In recent times he calls it “Guitar Craft Standard” or “C Pentatonic”.

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