I got bored of having my guitars in standard tuning a while back, and started to get interested in learning to finger-pick. Mostly because I finally turned an ear to John Fahey after ignoring him for a long time (for no reason at all, except maybe hearing his name too much) and got my head ripped clean off by the sheer perfection of the musical world this man was able to create. Not that I wanted to go out and be another Jack Rose or Ben Chasny (though, they are great) I just thought if most of my guitar playing is going to be done alone, mostly amusing myself, I might as well learn how to play so it sounds like it’s 3 people.
Anyhow, so that never really happened as it take some more of what I have not, (no, not talent) time. Though I still fully intend to learn to at least get by playing finger-style (and about a million other things). So what I ended up with was a guitar tuned to one of Fahey’s standards, that was slowly but surely slipping out of tune. For some reason though, it seemed to slip IN tune… just a different sound or something. One day a picked it up and sort of tuned it into tolerability, and it had a sort of koto-like sound. The for some reason of other, I thought it’d kind of sound more like a koto if the strings were muted some. So I crammed some paper between the strings near the nut like so:
As soon as I began to play it, i felt like i was on to something. It has an interesting way of making what ever strings are open sound like an accompanying instrument and whatever is being fretted, some kind of lead. So I’ve been playing it like this for months now, whenever my computer is loading a big file (ha ha) and I’ve really grown to love it. I have no idea what the tuning is b/c it’s so far from normal tuning, even with a tuner I’m going to just get a bunch of pitches it will be nearly impossible to replicate again. (Maybe someone who has a good ear could tell me more) SO I’m basically keeping it like this at least for now.
I’ve been wanting to post about this tuning for a while, but I wanted you all to be able to hear it. Problem was, I just wasn’t getting around to recording it. So today I figured I’d do it quick and dirty. This is recorded through my computer mic (that’s what that hard drive crunch is in the background). It’s a track of guitar, improvised and unedited and a track of vocals done the same, but then delayed and reversed to make the third track. It’s pretty crunchy sounding, but I kind of like the ambience the noise seems to create. Enjoy!
Tags: aleatoric music, avant garde, drone, exploratory music, folk music, free music, generative music, guitar, home recording, improvisation, minimalism, my music, noise, non-western tunings, prepared guitar, psychedelic music, sound experiments
January 6, 2008 at 1:15 am |
I had a Silvertone for a while myself. Be careful with those tuning pegs– as I understand, many of them were made with some sort of starch compound, and it’s fragile stuff. I ended up tuning mine with pliers for a long time, ugh!
January 6, 2008 at 11:45 am |
yeah, i think the tuners are actually bakelite on some models. these are actually in really good condition with almost no sign of drying out or cracking. i had another similar guitar where they were all crumbled like that. i think that’s a different substance tho. either way, i have no qualms about ripping them out and replacing them with something else if they do go.
January 7, 2008 at 9:35 am |
Wonderful. Very wonderful. The vocals definitely add a very cool texture to the whole thing.
January 7, 2008 at 2:11 pm |
thanks jake. i’m starting to wish i’d recorded it better haha.
June 11, 2009 at 10:20 pm |
I been trying some Bert Jansch tunings, whole new world there.