Bands OTHER THAN SONIC YOUTH that use weird or made-up tunings

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Bands? Examples?

― Lee is Free (Lee is Free), Thursday, 9 March 2006 04:43 (twenty years ago)

Nick Drake

― Cameron Octigan (Cameron Octigan), Thursday, 9 March 2006 05:02 (twenty years ago)

I made up a tuning:

D F H R E N

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 9 March 2006 05:05 (twenty years ago)

Joni Mitchell
Anne Briggs
John Fahey
Davey Graham
Burt Jansch
Led Zeppelin
Polvo

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 9 March 2006 05:05 (twenty years ago)

Well he asked for bands, but it's hard to resist going beyond that, so I'll say James "Blood" Ulmer.

Savage Republic did the "tune all the strings on the guitar to the same note" trick. Probably used other tunings too.

Glenn Branca obv.

― eek, Thursday, 9 March 2006 05:06 (twenty years ago)

Old blues dudes
Hawaiians
Country steel players

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 9 March 2006 05:18 (twenty years ago)

Keith Richards often plays a five-stringed guitar tuned G-D-G-B-D, so, um The Rolling Stones.
Also, Jandek.

― Mike Dixn (Mike Dixon), Thursday, 9 March 2006 05:52 (twenty years ago)

Neil Young

― Stormy Davis (diamond), Thursday, 9 March 2006 06:17 (twenty years ago)

Thinking Fellers Union Local 282

― sleeve (sleeve), Thursday, 9 March 2006 06:38 (twenty years ago)

I think that "most of them" is probably the best answer to your query. Can we stop now?

― John Justen (johnjusten), Thursday, 9 March 2006 06:45 (twenty years ago)

Yes

― Mike Dixn (Mike Dixon), Thursday, 9 March 2006 06:54 (twenty years ago)

No, the key is WEIRD or MADE-UP tunings, as opposed to the "standard" alternate tunings like Dropped D and Open E and etc.

Bruce Anderson (MX-80 Sound) and Robert Fripp both devised their own weird tuning. And of course there's Elliot Sharp and his tuning based on the Fibonacci series.

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Thursday, 9 March 2006 08:04 (twenty years ago)

Practically every song (mostly from 'If I Could Only Remember My Name' and the first Crosby/Nash album) in the David Crosby songbook is in some more or less strange tuning.

― avery keen-gardner (avery keen-gardner), Thursday, 9 March 2006 09:36 (twenty years ago)

"made-up tunings" = all of them.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 9 March 2006 09:40 (twenty years ago)

When I was in high school, word on the street was that Dashboard Confessional used DADGAD. I never said that.

― regular roundups (Dave M), Thursday, 9 March 2006 09:45 (twenty years ago)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scordatura

― Chinchilla Volapük (Captain Sleep), Thursday, 9 March 2006 10:11 (twenty years ago)

kevin shields used lots of weird microtonal tunings i think

― hjadsk, Thursday, 9 March 2006 11:16 (twenty years ago)

Shudder to Think in their later years were real big on alter tunings. Very good at it i might add

― todd finkel (LakeSurfer), Thursday, 9 March 2006 17:08 (twenty years ago)

World Domination Enterprises used some pretty fucked up tunings

― zappi (joni), Thursday, 9 March 2006 17:11 (twenty years ago)

doesn't every band do this at some point?

Pavement
JSBX/Pussy Galore/Royal Trux
the Beatles
the Kinks
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
the White Stripes
Beck
Ghost
every folk band ever
ever blues guy ever (pretty much)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 March 2006 17:12 (twenty years ago)

The Velvet Underground (all strings tuned to one note)
Neu!

... without whom Sonic Youth would blah blah blah blah

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 9 March 2006 17:45 (twenty years ago)

Robert Fripp uses the tuning (low to high) C G D A E G, but I don't think he uses it on any King Crimson stuff prior to their 80s incarnation.

― Lotta Continua (Damian), Thursday, 9 March 2006 21:05 (twenty years ago)

B-52's. Ricky had some odd ones.

― Daniel Peterson (polkaholic), Thursday, 9 March 2006 21:18 (twenty years ago)

Dude, you're forgetting about Soundgarden, the variety of their tunings rival Sonic Youth's.

― xgurggleglgllg (xgurggleglgllg), Thursday, 9 March 2006 23:44 (twenty years ago)

Ciccone Youth

― cracktivity1 (cracktivity1), Thursday, 9 March 2006 23:50 (twenty years ago)

Malkmus used plenty of alternate tunings in the days of Pavement. You could see it on the setlists.

― hector savage, Friday, 10 March 2006 00:40 (twenty years ago)

Silvio Rodríguez

― antonio, Friday, 10 March 2006 07:24 (twenty years ago)

A Crass fan I knew at the time the early SY records came out was convinced they were influenced by the Crass sound.

Not enough of a muso(or a Crass fan) to unpick that, but the chanting and simple riffing seems similar. Neither of us had heard Savage Republic's 'Tragic Figures' at that point, tho.

― Soukesian, Friday, 10 March 2006 08:08 (twenty years ago)

The tunings used by Ravi Shankar, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Khaled all sound weird to my ears. Not neccessarily to their countrymen though.

― Geir Hongro, Friday, 10 March 2006 19:16 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

Adam and Jimmy from Swervedriver certainly had some odd tunings.

― Christian, Tuesday, 9 May 2006 17:51 (twenty years ago)

The Durutti Column, one supposes...

― hank (hank s), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 18:00 (twenty years ago)

Worth mentioning again: I think Polvo focuses heavily on weird alternate tunings.

― mervin heinz, Tuesday, 9 May 2006 18:10 (twenty years ago)

Drum's Not Dead is chock-full of bizarre tunings (not that you can really tell, what with all of the pitch-shifters they used). I'll check the liner notes when I get home, it mentions the tunings they used in there.

Also, the first Dismemberment Plan album featured a couple songs played in CCCCBE.

― sixteen sergeants, Tuesday, 9 May 2006 18:17 (twenty years ago)

okay, the Drum's Not Dead tunings:

D F F C B B (both Fs the same, Bs one octave apart)
D F# F# B A A (both F#s the same, As one octave apart)
D A D F# A D

― sixteen sergeants, Tuesday, 9 May 2006 23:15 (twenty years ago)

Bach

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Tuesday, 9 May 2006 23:50 (twenty years ago)

It blows my mind that the Liars got their high E up to a B without snapping it. Or breaking their neck.

― bob george (Lee is Free), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 00:45 (twenty years ago)

I read this title as "Bands other than Sonic Youth that use weird make-up and things"

― pleased to mitya (mitya), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 01:00 (twenty years ago)

to be fair, they did use a custom set of string gauges: .56, .32, .32, .24, .32, .16

(I am absolutely not making that up, it comes straight out of the liner notes)

― sixteen sergeants, Wednesday, 10 May 2006 01:02 (twenty years ago)

er, I lied. low E is .52, not .56. the rest of 'em are right though. (I am, of course, talking about Liars, not Sonic Youth)

― sixteen sergeants, Wednesday, 10 May 2006 01:03 (twenty years ago)

Half Japanese's David Fair:

Oh. It's already on ILM:

How to Play Guitar, by David Fair

― S- (sgh), Wednesday, 10 May 2006 03:57 (twenty years ago)

seven years pass...

http://jutegyte.bandcamp.com/album/discontinuities

^^^ for sonic youth heads that are ok with a little hoarse screaming, ok a lot of it

but the custom-made microtonal guitars are incredible

― j., Friday, 14 February 2014 01:00 (twelve years ago)

My son tells me that Soundgarden's My Wave has EEBBBB, Burden in My Hand is in open C, and that they do a lot of this kind of thing

― Dr X O'Skeleton, Friday, 14 February 2014 21:41 (twelve years ago)

figured there'd be recent ment of jute gyte on here, ay voila. just ordered CD-Rs of the last two, amazing head bendy noise.

― CANONICAL artists, etc., etc. (contenderizer), Saturday, 15 February 2014 06:22 (twelve years ago)

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