Many musicians find inspiration in one of the most unlikely of places: their guitar tuners. Instead of using the standard EADGBE tuning, many musicians like to play around with their guitar tuners to get a cool, unique sounding, alternative way to tune their sound equipment.
Here are a few of the coolest — and easiest — alternative tunings you can play around with.
Drop D.
Drop D is often the first alternative tuning guitarists use, because it not only sounds cool, but because it’s so easy. Most guitarists don’t even need their guitar tuners to put their guitars in Drop D. All you have to do is drop your E string down to a D. That’s it.
Down One Whole Step.
To tune your guitar a whole step down, put it in DGCFAD. Tuning your acoustic guitar down a whole step is an awesome way to add more depth and emotion to your sound, whether you use nylon guitar strings or silk and steel guitar strings. Try playing some of your favorite acoustic songs in this tuning — without correcting the chord fingers — and see how it sounds.
“Bad Moon Rising.
“Bad Moon Rising,” one of the greatest songs Creedence Clearwater Revival ever put out, has one of the weirdest tunings you’ll probably ever encounter. In order to play it, you have to put your guitar in F#F#F#F#EB. Though it might seem strange, it did produce a hit like “Bad Moon Rising,” so who knows what you can maybe do with it.
Of course, not all guitar tuners work the same way. Most will hear the string after it’s picked, and tell the musician how far off he or she is from a certain note. Other guitar tuners, however, might work differently. If you’re not sure how to tune your guitar to any of these alternatives, feel free to ask in the comments. Find out more about this topic here.