Petra's Fingerstyle Guitar Music

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		This page contains a short descriptions on various nonopened tunings. Some of these tunings are frequently found in classical and blues guitar literature, and some are a little bit exotic.


	Old Spanish Tuning DGDGAE	This tuning can be found in classical literature. Two last strings E and A are dropped to D and G respectively. There are a lot of pieces written in this tunings, especially by old Spanish masters.
	Lute Tuning EADF#AE	This is a tuning used by lute players. The third string G is dropped by a half tone to F#. Many lute pieces are transcribed for guitar using this tuning. Try to find some good classical guitar book, there will be probably some pieces written in this tuning.
	Dropped D Tuning DADGAE	This is a tuning used by many blues masters. Last string E is dropped down do D. You can find pieces written in this tuning in Stefan Grossman's book.
	Tuning CGDGBE	I have found similar tuning in Ry Cooder's songs. Last string E goes down to C , and the fifth string A goes down to G . This tuning is not suitable for classical guitars because of last string depth. Jumbo and Dread guitars can be tuned in this tuning.

	Why nonopened alternative tunings ?	Of course, there are theoretical reasons to retune your guitar. Some songs in some keys are just hungry for alternative tunings. Transcribing songs from some musical period, writting songs in particular manner, people had invented many alternative tunings, that nowadays are fingerstyle standards, but we are going to discuss some other aspetcs of alternative tunings . Well, at first, you may trie to emulate some other stringed instrument, for instance a violin which is tuned in quintas, i.e. GDAE. Now, as guitar has six strings (more or less), if we try to emulate something like a six strings violin, it would be FCGDAE. Just fine, now we have the fifth string dropped down to C (we'll have to put the sixth string instead the fifth) and the sixth string went down to F. What you're gonna put instead of sixth string, a double bass string, or perhaps o rope ? We can do it in another way: CGDAEB. Now, only change here is, that we have to put the first string instead of second, but we have now another problem. What we're gonna put for the first string ? If you find something sutable for this, let me know (maybe mandoline string ?). Mr. Robert Fripp suggested a tuning CGDAEG, which is a compomise (the first stiring is lowerd to G) but, wach out, it's still a high tension on the first string, and beside of retuning our guitar, we still have to change strings. If you have a couple of guitars, it's O.K., you always have one for experiment. So, if we don't want to change strings on guitar, we must compomise more. So, various people have made various compromises, and of cause a various tunings. People also invented a harp-style guitar in hope to emulate a Celtic harp. There are guitars with 7, 9 and even 10 strings. These are all attempts to emulate harp, and still to have a gutar in the first place. If you like to do experiments, find some site explaining how late Michael Hedges did cut and past with his guitars. To see the whole pallet of his tunings, go to: John Stropes Edition and have a fun.