Kevin Gordon and his beloved ES-125, in earlier days.
Looking for new fuel for your sound and songs? Nashville’s Kevin Gordon found both in exploring traditional blues tunings and their variations.
I first heard open guitar tunings while in college, from older players who’d become friends or mentors, and from various artists playing at the Delta Blues Festival in the early mid-’80s, which was held in a fallow field in Freedom Village, Mississippi—whose topographical limits likely did not extend beyond said field.
I remember Jessie Mae Hemphill wearing a full-length leopard-print coat and black cowboy hat in the September heat, walking through the crowd selling 45s, and James “Son” Thomas singing his bawdy version of “Catfish Blues.” Also, an assembly of older gentlemen passing a pint bottle, all wearing vests with the name of their fraternal society sewn on the back: Dead Peckers Club.
I played in master minimalist Bo Ramsey’s band from 1988 to ’90. Living in Iowa City, attending grad school for poetry, weekend gigs with Bo were another equally important kind of education. He was the first guy I played in a band with who used open tunings. Nothing exotic: open G or open E, early Muddy Waters and Elmore James. Music I had loved since growing up in Louisiana. This was our bond, the music we both considered bedrock. Some of my first songs, written for that band, featured Bo on slide guitar.
I moved to Nashville in 1992, a city already populated with a few friends—some from Iowa, some from Louisiana. Buddy Flett was from Shreveport; I’d loved his playing since seeing him in the band A-Train in the early ’80s. We’d go eat catfish at Wendell Smith’s, and inevitably talk about songs. He’d achieved some success as a writer, working with fellow north Louisianan David Egan, employing his own kind of sleight-of-hand mystery in both G and D tunings.
In 1993, I found a guitar that would change my life and my songwriting: a scrappy Gibson ES-125 from 1956, standing in a corner of a friend’s apartment in Nashville, covered in dust. I asked if I could borrow it, for no particular reason other than to get it out of there so that it would be played. I wrote a song on it, in double drop-D tuning [D–A–D–G–B–D]. Not a great song, but it got me thinking about open strings and tunings again. I was looking for a way to play solo shows that reflected where I came from, and where the songs came from that I was writing.“The droning aspect of open tunings always appealed to me, and in the context of solo gigs, the big sound of octaves ringing out helped this insecure guitar player sound a little taller, wider . . . something.”
So, I put the guitar in open D [D–A–D–F#–A–D], put flatwounds on it, and started figuring out chord shapes (other than barring flat across) that I could use to play my songs, all of which at that point had been written and performed in standard tuning. I’d bought a ’64 Fender Princeton amp years before, when I was 19, but had never found a use for it until now: The 125 through the Princeton on about four was the sound. The droning aspect of open tunings always appealed to me, and in the context of solo gigs, the big sound of octaves ringing out helped this insecure guitar player sound a little taller, wider . . . something. The fingerings I came up with all seemed to mask the third of the scale—so you’d have a big sound which was neither major nor minor. And for my songs, it just felt right. By the time I recorded my second album for Shanachie, Down to the Well, in 1999, I was writing songs in open D (“Pueblo Dog”). For the next two albums, released in 2005 and 2012, the majority of the songs were written and performed live in open D, employing a capo when necessary.
As usual, the methods and habits developed while touring fed back into the writing and recording processes. For my latest release, The In Between, though, most of the songs were written and recorded in standard—“Simple Things,” “Tammy Cecile,” “Coming Up”—with some exceptions, including “Keeping My Brother Down,” “You Can’t Hurt Me No More,” and the title track, on which I play a ’50s Gibson electric tenor archtop in a peculiar tuning: C–G–C–G. Though I can’t say that open tunings make for better songs, they do help me hear chords differently, at times suggesting progressions that I wouldn’t normally think of. One song currently in-progress has these verse changes: VIm / I / VIm / I / VIm / I / II / II. In standard tuning, that VI would sound (to my ear) too bright. But because I’m writing it in open D, how I fret the VI sounds low and dark, appropriate for the lyric and melody, creating the right setting for the lines and story to unfold.
A striking technique stolen from Sonic Youth.
Confession: Most of the ideas in this column are stolen from Sonic Youth, and the rest are swiped from other people.
The topic is alternate tunings that require restringing—a royal pain in the posterior! But time and again, these tunings (all of which narrow the interval between the 1
st and 6th strings, hence my “narrow-range” moniker) have inspired parts that fit the mix when nothing else did. Perhaps you’ll find the idea compelling enough to keep a spare guitar strung for these sounds?
The most famous string-swap tuning is Nashville high-stringing (explained and demoed here).
How Nashville High-Stringing Works
You hear this sound on the Stones’ “Wild Horses” and Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.” But these narrowed tunings aren’t delicate and pretty like that. They’re crude, simplistic, and usually out of tune. Yum!
Guitars in the Fridge
When I met Sonic Youth in the late ’80s, they couldn’t yet afford lots of nice guitars. They toured with their pawnshop beaters knocking against each other in cardboard refrigerator boxes. Their oddball tunings didn’t just inspire new riffs—they provided a unique sonority, especially when cranked through fuzz pedals and funky amps. No other band resonated like Sonic Youth.
The guitars and tunings literally varied from song to song, but they shared common themes. Many strings were tuned in unison pairs, and the distance between the highest and lowest strings was usually an octave or less, as opposed to the usual two octaves. Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo often played melodies by barring across unison string pairs, which is a technique that enforces a minimalist style.
The effect has a rough, artless quality perfect for some musical contexts—and not just punkified ones.
You can replicate most Sonic Youth tunings with the same string set: use two of your usual 5th strings for the 6th and 5th strings, two 4th strings for the 4th and 3rd strings, and two 3rd strings for the 2nd and 1st strings, as if you were tuning A-A-D-D-G-G. (String pitches are listed low to high throughout.) From there you can crank strings up or down for hundreds of possible combinations.
A Sketchy Sketch
Clip 1 is a sketchy demo of the idea. A standard-tuned guitar in the left channel is joined by a narrow-range guitar (tuned G-G-D-D-G-G) on the right. I mutilated the tone with trashy fuzz and didn’t sweat the sloppy tuning.
America
The effect has a rough, artless quality perfect for some musical contexts—and not just punkified ones. Example: my guitars on Tracy Chapman's "America." (Flea’s playing bass, Mitchell Froom and Michael Webster are on keys, and Tracy and Quinn Smith are drumming. Tchad Blake produced.)
Example 2: GGDDGG (The Recording Guitarist - February 2017) by premierguitar
Clip 2 is a solo riff in the same tuning. I pick out a tune on the top string pair while droning on the low open strings, or barre across several string pairs for chords.
Example 3: GGDDEE (The Recording Guitarist - February 2017) by premierguitar
Tuned G-G-D-D-E-E, the guitar in Clip 3 exploits the clangorous whole-step interval between the upper string pairs.
Example 4: FFCCEbEb (The Recording Guitarist - February 2017) by premierguitar
The tuning options are nearly endless: G-G-D-D-A-A, G-G-D-D-Eb-Eb, G-G-C-C-F-F, G-G-C-C-E-E. I could go on, but instead of over-thinking it, I recommend simply twisting your tuners till the strings resonate nicely with the song, and then picking out simple melodies. For Clip 4, I chose the random key of F minor. I fiddled around and arrived at this F-F-C-C-Eb-Eb tuning.
Example 5: GABDEG (The Recording Guitarist - February 2017) by premierguitar
You don’t have to restrict yourself to unison pairs. One particularly nasty Sonic Youth tuning is G-G-C#-D-G-G, with that gnarly minor second in the middle. Meanwhile Thurston’s “Teenage Riot” tuning is G-A-B-D-E-G, with no unisons. The open strings form a pentatonic scale for a dreamy Aeolian harp effect (Clip 5).
Example 6: GABDEG (The Recording Guitarist - February 2017) by premierguitar
Clip 6 uses the same tuning, but with a drumstick shoved beneath the strings at the 12th fret (see photo). This mimics an Asian zither, especially when you vibrate and bend strings by pressing down behind the drumstick.
Strictly Stoopid
I saved the stoopidest one for last. In Clip 7, all six strings are tuned to G in various octaves.
GARY GLITTER ROCK & ROLL PART 1 & 2
This is based on the A-A-A-A-A-A “Gary Glitter tuning,” as heard on “Rock and Roll (Part 1 and 2).”
PJ Harvey - Goodnight
I learned this one from Polly Harvey, who wrote several songs in this tuning, including “Goodnight,” which I got to play with her on tour.
This technique isn’t for everyone. You might find it overly simplistic and discordant. But why not try slapping on a few spare middle strings before your next string change? At worst, you’ll be amused. With any luck, you’ll be inspired.
[Updated 4/4/22]
