different guitar tunings

Not been playing all that long so this might be a stupid question but im going to ask it anyway.
Why all the different tunings for the guitar, we learn to play the guitar in standard tuning E A D G B E but as ive been cruising the songs on the site, all the songs ive been watching seem to be tuned to a different configuration which to me is so confusing, wont all the chord shapes change and the scales positions change too.. i guess this is more to do with advanced playing technique which i dont understand yet but as a beginner it dont half confuse the heck out of you...
:-)

Originally Posted by: wingman23as a beginner it dont half confuse the heck out of you...
:-)

I believe that's the purpose of it. Just to confuse and annoy - For the most part anyway :P
Though there is "some" logic to it from what little I know, as it can extend the range of notes available to you - ie drop D tuning allows you to play 2 extra semi-tones below the low E you'd usually play.
Drop C confuses me, sure dropping to the C gives you further range, but why screw up the other 5 strings? I can only assume it's somehow to compensate for the huge change on your bottom E but generally I just straight up avoid songs that require me to change my tuning. Drop D I can deal with, I can quickly tune the bottom E to a D by ear with no hassle - everything else I just avoid. Seems like being different for the sake of being different.

Also, tuning your guitar down will make the strings easier to bend. Stevie Ray Vaughan tuned half a step down for that reason. Its easier to achieve 1½ steps bends.
Tuning your guitar in G goes back to slide guitar I think. I'm gessing that guitar players that play in G must have played slide guitar at some point in there life and liked it. And they kept it ? No idea :)

I think I can help, and understand your concern.

The ability to change tunings is one of the most convenient things about playing guitars. You really can't do that on any other instrument and have it sound as good. Most of the time, guitarists are tuning lower to fit the range of the singer (Van Halen, Alice in Chains, etc.) and to also get a heavier sound on the guitar in the case of severe "down tuning" (Slipknot, Korn, etc.) It can also be a combination of the two.

I play with a singer who writes a lot on the piano, so he tunes his guitar down to Eb to make the open chord shapes work along with the very "black key" dominated piano parts he writes. At first I was not for it, but over time I saw his logic and his songs were much easier to learn this way. In the past, I would tune down a half step to help the singer out while also getting a heavier sound from my strings.

Other times, open tunings can give you a whole new sound on the guitar really allow you to explore new territory with minimal chord changing (Ritchie Havens, Jodi Mitchell, etc.). It all depends on the musical situation you are in.

Best of luck, and you can always keep your guitar in standard tuning if you aren't playing along with the original recording. Have fun and keep the questions coming. :cool:

One of my best friends taught me to play and I remember talking about weird tunings with him because Jimmy Page was his hero and I'd found a magazine article on how Page used just about every tuning in the book for various songs. Being a perverse bugger he often tracked guitars on unusual tunings over ones on standard tuning. Years later I got a book of tab for Steve Vai's Fire Garden and found he often does the same thing. Still this friend of mine kept saying 'I don't see the advantage of that personally.' Last I heard from him he's big on playing acoustic folk music. I bet he sees the advantage now.

Folk guitarists are renowned for this, some of them I'd wager have never even played a guitar tuned to EADGBE and may not even know how. I'd been aware of alternative tunings for years and never bothered with them until I went to see Martin Simpson live and started to see what you could get from using them, and why I'd never quite figured out how his music worked when I sat there trying to get it on standard tunings.

Capos are often an accessory to open tunings, because once you've got an open major chord, to change key you just move the capo to whichever fret corresponds to your preferred key. Keith Richards likes this idea on the records in the middle of the Stones' discography, and at one point even played the guitar as a five-string with the low E removed because it wasn't of any use to him. Just as an example, anyone who's tabbed 'Start me Up' should have done it in open G tuning. In his book, the man himself says it won't work otherwise yet so many bands try playing it in standard tuning.

If you want a great alternative tuning song to have a go at try 'Dyin' Day' by Steve Vai, where the electric lead is played on standard tuning but the acoustic that backs it is played in open c#major with fingerings that look like they belong on standard tuning, which is just NUTS. They key changes he uses in that song I still can't figure out musically, and it's a perfect example of how I'm never quite sure how people understand when they need to use alternative tunings. Guess it's just a matter of being used to them.

As I mentioned in my intro post, I'm really getting into open tunings myself while writing on the acoustic. Currently, I'm working on a song in open G tuning (D-G-D-G-B-D) with a capo on the second fret, making it E-A-E-A-C#-E. I'm really enjoying it, especially hitting the 7th fret harmonic to get that sweet tone.

Here's various tunings used in hawaiian music http://www.taropatch.net/tunings.htm

Hawaiian Slack Key has been using various tunings for a long time. I suggest centering yourself in "standard" tuning first if you really want to become proficient in guitar.

slackdog