Drop tuning is when the 6th string in standard tuning is dropped two semitones. For example, Drop D is when you drop the bottom E string in E standard tuning down to a D, which is two semitones lower. A fret difference is one semitone.
To tune to Drop D you would tune to E standard and then lower the pitch of the bottom string until the 7th fret of the 6th string is the same pitch as the 5th string open. All the rest of the strings should still have the same relationship as standard tuning, so the whole relationship is as follows for any drop tuning:
7th fret of 6th string = open 5th string
5th fret of 5th string = open 4th string
5th fret of 4th string = open 3rd string
4th fret of 3rd string = open 2nd string
5th fret of 2nd string = open 1st string
When tuning it is generally best to work down from the highest pitched string as the bottom string goes out of tune more and it is harder to discern the pitch of a lower pitched note. So to tune to any drop tuning, tune the top (highest pitch) string to two semitones above the name of the drop tuning. So for Drop D this is E, Drop C it is D, drop B it is C# (There is only one semitone between notes B and C, and also between E and F). Once you have tuned the top string, hold down the 5th fret of the 2nd string, and adjust its tension with the tuning pegs until it matches the top string, then hold down the 4th fret of the 3rd string and adjust it until it matches the 2nd string, and so on. You may need to repeat this several times to check they are all in tune, especially for floating tremolo systems.
For floating tremolos, repeat until it is all in tune then lock the locks at the base of the headstock, then check it is still in tune. If it is not, then adjust the fine tuning pegs on the bridge of the guitar until they are, with the same process of checking fretted strings against open strings. Now you are done, assuming the tension of the springs is such that the bridge is level. If not, then you will need a more in depth guide to tuning floating tremolo systems, as it is a complicated process. Your guitar/tremolo manufacturer may have provided a guide with your guitar, or online, if not there are many guides for tuning floating tremolo systems.
Another way of tuning is to use a guitar tuner which tells you whether your string is too sharp or too flat. Tuners are very useful, but I find on the 6th string it is better to use the method above as the tuner nearly always gets the pitch slightly wrong. I shall list the notes in popular drop tunings, but you can work this out yourself using how many semitones apart each string should be.
Starting on the 1st string going down to the 6th string:
Drop D:
E
B
G
D
A
D
Drop C:
D
A
F
C
G
C
Drop B:
C#
G#
E
B
F#
B
Drop A#:
C
G
D#
A#
F
A#
Saturday, 11 September 2010
Friday, 10 September 2010
Pinch Harmonics
Pinch harmonics are high pitch squealing sounds sometimes referred to as squealies. They happen when you stop the string vibrating at a certain point along the string with the thumb of your picking hand, causing the harmonic which is when the string vibrates like this:
The red dots are nodes, which means the string does not vibrate at that point. There can be any number of nodes and they are evenly spaced along the string. The vibration shown is the 4th harmonic. The 1st harmonic is when the string vibrates normally but guitarists do not refer to that as a harmonic. We cause the string to vibrate harmonically by stopping it vibrating at a point on the string with our thumb at the moment we pick the string. This causes a node, and for the string to vibrate the other nodes come about themselves.
We do not really need to worry about all that to perform the technique, if you do a pinch harmonic anywhere you pretty much always find a harmonic. If you divide the string in half with the pinch you create the 2nd harmonic, into thirds you create the 3rd harmonic, into quarters you create the 4th harmonic and so on. There are an infinite number of these fractions so you always make some harmonic.
To perform the technique, hold the pick between your thumb and forefinger with just a tiny bit of the pick poking out. Pick the string downwards and dig in a little, and push in with your thumb simultaneously. This should produce the squealie, but it does take a bit of practice. If you can't seem to manage try changing the position along the string, lower harmonics are easier, so the easiest to do would be halfway along the string, on the 12th fret, but the fretboard gets in the way. The easiest practical one to do is probably the 5th harmonic, this should be roughly on the bridge edge of your neck pickup if it is a humbucker, or about a 5th the way along the string from the bridge. Just keep searching around and practicing the technique and you will get it.
We do not really need to worry about all that to perform the technique, if you do a pinch harmonic anywhere you pretty much always find a harmonic. If you divide the string in half with the pinch you create the 2nd harmonic, into thirds you create the 3rd harmonic, into quarters you create the 4th harmonic and so on. There are an infinite number of these fractions so you always make some harmonic.
To perform the technique, hold the pick between your thumb and forefinger with just a tiny bit of the pick poking out. Pick the string downwards and dig in a little, and push in with your thumb simultaneously. This should produce the squealie, but it does take a bit of practice. If you can't seem to manage try changing the position along the string, lower harmonics are easier, so the easiest to do would be halfway along the string, on the 12th fret, but the fretboard gets in the way. The easiest practical one to do is probably the 5th harmonic, this should be roughly on the bridge edge of your neck pickup if it is a humbucker, or about a 5th the way along the string from the bridge. Just keep searching around and practicing the technique and you will get it.
Sweep picking arpeggios
Here are alternatives to the standard 6 string sweeps used in standard tuning. In drop tuning it is a little trickier as we cannot conveniently use the bottom string so we either have to add another note further down on the 5th string, or another note further up on the 1st string. In the video I show the first way with G Minor then G Major, and then the second way.
G Minor
--------------8-12-8-------------
-----------10--------10----------
---------9--------------9---------
------10-----------------10------
7-12-----------------------12---
---------------------------------
G Major
--------------9-12-9-------------
-----------10--------10----------
---------9--------------9---------
------11-----------------11------
7-12-----------------------12---
----------------------------------
G Minor with tapping
-----------8-12-T17-12-8-------------
--------10-----------------10----------
------9------------------------9--------
---10---------------------------10-----
12-------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
G Major with tapping
-----------9-12-T17-12-9-------------
--------10-----------------10----------
------9------------------------9--------
---11---------------------------11-----
12-------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Note: They are only G in Drop C, they are A in Drop D.
To sweep pick it is good to have a finger for each fret unless a stretch is needed, make sure you use all your fingers. The sweeping is the pick motion as you move the pick across the strings in a sweeping motion. Take for example G Minor, you play a downstroke on the 7, an upstroke on the 12, then all downstrokes until 8 on the top string in a sweeping motion, then an upstroke on the 12, downstroke on the 8 then the sweeping motion of upstrokes all the way to the 12 on the 5th string, then it repeats. When you do the sweeping motion you don't pick with your wrist, you move your whole hand in a smooth motion. Try to pick with the very tip of the pick as it is easier to pick faster. Sweep picking is hard and you will need to practice very slowly for a long time before you can sweep fast and accurately. Good luck!
Sweep picking arpeggio lesson from Drop Tuning Guitar Lessons on Vimeo.
G Minor
--------------8-12-8-------------
-----------10--------10----------
---------9--------------9---------
------10-----------------10------
7-12-----------------------12---
---------------------------------
G Major
--------------9-12-9-------------
-----------10--------10----------
---------9--------------9---------
------11-----------------11------
7-12-----------------------12---
----------------------------------
G Minor with tapping
-----------8-12-T17-12-8-------------
--------10-----------------10----------
------9------------------------9--------
---10---------------------------10-----
12-------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
G Major with tapping
-----------9-12-T17-12-9-------------
--------10-----------------10----------
------9------------------------9--------
---11---------------------------11-----
12-------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Note: They are only G in Drop C, they are A in Drop D.
To sweep pick it is good to have a finger for each fret unless a stretch is needed, make sure you use all your fingers. The sweeping is the pick motion as you move the pick across the strings in a sweeping motion. Take for example G Minor, you play a downstroke on the 7, an upstroke on the 12, then all downstrokes until 8 on the top string in a sweeping motion, then an upstroke on the 12, downstroke on the 8 then the sweeping motion of upstrokes all the way to the 12 on the 5th string, then it repeats. When you do the sweeping motion you don't pick with your wrist, you move your whole hand in a smooth motion. Try to pick with the very tip of the pick as it is easier to pick faster. Sweep picking is hard and you will need to practice very slowly for a long time before you can sweep fast and accurately. Good luck!
Preparing your guitar
The first thing to do is to prepare your guitar to play well. You need to pick a set of strings, get your guitar set up, and choose a pick.
Ideally you would get a professional to set up your guitar so the neck is near flat and the action is nice and low, but there are guides around on the internet for setting up your guitar yourself if you would prefer. I would be very careful touching the truss rod, as you can damage your guitar permanently, so getting a professional to do this would be a wise choice.
What I am mainly concerned with which gives an easy, instant improvement to the playability of your guitar is string and pick choice. Many players use poor quality strings with the wrong gauges and poor quality picks unsuited to their style of playing.
The vast majority of strings are designed for standard E tuning, and even in this tuning the low E string is loose. What you want is all the strings roughly the same tension, perhaps with the lighter strings at a lower tension so they are easier to bend. With the standard .009-.042 set in Drop D tuning, the bottom string will be very loose, in Drop C (which I play in) all the strings will be loose and the bottom even looser. D'addario have a chart of string tensions for different gauges and notes: Gauge guide This is a great guideline for choosing string gauges with even tensions in your tuning. You can also order individual strings from them so you can build your own set. I use Tite-Fit JH-10 by DR for Drop C, as I find I like the tension and they are all roughly the same tension in Drop C, and I find DR strings good to play and they keep their brightness and tone for a long time. The gauges are: 10 14 18 32 44 56 which is a good guideline for Drop C, for Drop D you may want slightly thinner strings. It is definitely worth getting quality strings with the right gauge, it makes it massively easier to play.
Choose a quality pick that suits your playing style. If you are playing in drop tuning chances are you are going to be shredding, in which case a thick sharp pick is your best bet. Dunlop make the vast majority of good picks out there, you can't really go wrong with them. I use a black Dunlop Jazz-III which is fairly small, sharp, and thick, and the beveled edges give a great tone. Black Jazz-IIIs are stiffer than red ones. Another good choice is Dunlop Ultex Sharps. If you are more into strumming you might prefer a thinner pick, and if you don't play fast you might not want a sharp tip.
I hope these tips help you to set your guitar up how you want it, and make it easier to play. With quality strings and picks your tone should improve too.
Ideally you would get a professional to set up your guitar so the neck is near flat and the action is nice and low, but there are guides around on the internet for setting up your guitar yourself if you would prefer. I would be very careful touching the truss rod, as you can damage your guitar permanently, so getting a professional to do this would be a wise choice.
What I am mainly concerned with which gives an easy, instant improvement to the playability of your guitar is string and pick choice. Many players use poor quality strings with the wrong gauges and poor quality picks unsuited to their style of playing.
The vast majority of strings are designed for standard E tuning, and even in this tuning the low E string is loose. What you want is all the strings roughly the same tension, perhaps with the lighter strings at a lower tension so they are easier to bend. With the standard .009-.042 set in Drop D tuning, the bottom string will be very loose, in Drop C (which I play in) all the strings will be loose and the bottom even looser. D'addario have a chart of string tensions for different gauges and notes: Gauge guide This is a great guideline for choosing string gauges with even tensions in your tuning. You can also order individual strings from them so you can build your own set. I use Tite-Fit JH-10 by DR for Drop C, as I find I like the tension and they are all roughly the same tension in Drop C, and I find DR strings good to play and they keep their brightness and tone for a long time. The gauges are: 10 14 18 32 44 56 which is a good guideline for Drop C, for Drop D you may want slightly thinner strings. It is definitely worth getting quality strings with the right gauge, it makes it massively easier to play.
Choose a quality pick that suits your playing style. If you are playing in drop tuning chances are you are going to be shredding, in which case a thick sharp pick is your best bet. Dunlop make the vast majority of good picks out there, you can't really go wrong with them. I use a black Dunlop Jazz-III which is fairly small, sharp, and thick, and the beveled edges give a great tone. Black Jazz-IIIs are stiffer than red ones. Another good choice is Dunlop Ultex Sharps. If you are more into strumming you might prefer a thinner pick, and if you don't play fast you might not want a sharp tip.
I hope these tips help you to set your guitar up how you want it, and make it easier to play. With quality strings and picks your tone should improve too.
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