Playing the Keys of C and D in Open G Tuning
I think of this blog as being about acoustic guitar playing as much as it is about recording, but somehow the gadgets seem to get most of the attention. I’ve been fooling around with playing in different keys while using open G tuning and came up with a post that focuses on the playing side of things.
Home Sweet Home – Taropatch Tuning
Open G tuning is my home and has been for the last ten years or more. Before I discovered the joy of slack key guitar I thought of tunings as part of bottleneck blues, and I thought tunings meant playing in one key. But a number of Hawaiian musicians showed me that I was mistaken. Kevin Brown of Maui had a huge impact on my understanding of slack key when I saw him play the full range of chords, in whatever key was needed, always in a slack tuning. As I searched and learned I found that the only limit to playing in tunings is the player’s imagination.
Over the years I’ve explored ways to cover different keys, and I got an itch to shoot a little video demonstrating some of these techniques. I wound up with three separate videos, but they should be viewed as a set if possible. Only the first one discusses open G in detail, for instance.
Start in G, Go to C
I’m sort of aiming at folks who are already familiar with open G tuning, but let me start with a chart showing the tuning and the basic I, IV, and V chords.
First position chords in open G
Until recently Leonard’s C, the drop C variation of taropatch G tuning was my main tool for going beyond G. This clever variant goes half-way around the scale with a change to one string, dropping the low D down to an even lower C. Not an open tuning, it requires a modified standard tuning C chord shape to play the C major chord.
Drop C notes and chords
The open G that remains gives us a lot of great ways to play the V chord, though. The rest of our chord knowledge remains useful as well. The scale is slightly altered, with a new emphasis on the F instead of the F#. But having found E7, Am, etc. in taropatch, those same shapes now make the same chords in the key of C.
Here’s a video that lays the groundwork with G tuning, then demonstrates the details of drop C.
Start in G, Go to D
Plenty of harmonicas and accordians are tuned to a specific key but played in a different key – it’s called cross-tuning or cross-note playing. We can use the same idea to play the key of D while staying in our straight taropatch open G tuning.
Chords in D, tuning in G
This particular trick gives us a strong IV chord, G in the key of D, but the V chord, A, becomes a bit trickier. The barre at the 2nd fret works, as do the other shapes that one would use in taropatch, but these either require a barre or lack an easy bass note. This lack of an open A bass limits the kinds of runs that can be easily executed in the cross-tuning concept.
One approach to this problem is to choose a song that gives emphasis to the IV chord. Several of Dennis Kamakahi’s classics feature a lot of I to IV chordal movement, and the cross-tuning concept can really work for “Koke`e” or “Wahine `Ilikea.”
Another trick – rearrange the song. In the accompanying video on cross-tuning I sketched out an arrangement of Hula O Makee that changed a few bars of V chord to the IV chord instead.
Start in G, Go to D Again
The capo is usually the first tool I grab when I need to change key. The simple concept of clamping all the strings to a fret is hard to beat in theory, even if the practice can be tweaky at times. But there’s a way to use a capo that’s just a bit trickier.
I’ve seen articles about cut capos and partial capos for years, but I just skipped over them, because they seemed like a gimmicky way to approach the guitar. Lately I’ve had a change of heart because I’ve found the partial capo to give me a nice sounding key of D while using taropatch open G tuning.
Key of D from open G with a bit of a cheat(er)
The video illustrates this technique, capoing the higher pitched strings 1 through 5 while leaving the 6th string open. This gives the relative equivalent of drop C, one whole step higher, for a version of drop D. This gives us a way to play the key of D with a strong V chord – the five capoed strings spell out an A major chord.
The Singer Calls the Key
Back in my earlier slack key days I played solo instrumentals, occasional instrumental duets, and only very rarely played with vocalists. When I started backing up singers and trying to sing myself, things got a lot more complicated. Suddenly I had to play in any key, because the vocal range is usually very particular, and different for each singer. My sudden interest in the key of D came about when I found several songs I preferred to sing in that key.
There are other reasons to experiment with tunings and cross tunings. Different tunings might lead to different arrangements, different emotional colors. Whatever the reason, whatever the style, I hope this little exploration of the outer boundaries of open G tuning was useful.
This entry was posted on Saturday, June 16th, 2012 at 7:31 pm and is filed under Guitar, Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Pat said in post # 1,
on August 23rd, 2012 at 6:42 pm
Hello Fran,
Thank you for your very helpful posts and videos. Very nice overall quality: sound quality, but also the way you you address the audience and get information across, tempo of speech, manner, structuration of the tutorial. Great work, absolutely.
Thanks also for making me discover slack-key guitar. A lovely musical journey indeed. Nice finger-style playing too.
I have a question. On this last video, with the half-capo, could you tell us what is your recording signal chain (mic/preamp/soundcard/software), and is there any post-treatment (EQ, dynamics). I find the sound quality really outstanding. Very clear and warm sound and floor noise virtually inaudible. So I am very curious to know how you achieve it, if that is OK with you.
Best regards from France,
P.
Fran Guidry said in post # 2,
on August 24th, 2012 at 12:55 pm
Pat, I’m feeling a bit embarrassed. I think of myself as documenting these clips well, but here I am unable to give you the information you’d like. I can give you some general ideas but I can’t be as specific as you might wish, because I didn’t capture the info at the time I created the videos.
I framed the mics out of the shot so I can’t say for certain, but my best guess for the mics would be a pair of Shure KSM141s in cardioid mode, configured in a rough approximation of ORTF – 110 degree angle, 17 cm separation. This has been my most common technique for the last 6 months or so. The mics are between 18″ and 24″ from the guitar, directly in front positioned laterally so I hear a balanced left-right when I monitor in headphones. None of this is super precise, however.
The preamp/converter is an RME UFX. I have a pretty strong opinion that transparent preamps operated in their linear range are nearly impossible to differentiate, and the same is true for converters. Obviously millions of people disagree with me, but so far I haven’t heard a set of level matched same source clips that demonstrate an audible difference, and I’ve heard a number of clips that demonstrate no audible difference.
I captured the audio in REAPER but didn’t do any post processing there. I pulled the audio and all the video clips into Edius Neo, my usual video editor. Edius supports the VST plugin format, so I installed the Toneboosters suite of plugins. Just listening to this clip I would say that I hit the track with the Barricade limiter in order to get my average levels where I like them. I match the volume by ear to the “Flying Orange Hat” clip that I tag on the end. I may have added a touch of reverb, also from Toneboosters. I don’t hear any EQ but a small cut around 180-200 hz is a common tweak for me.
*** Edit ***
I just loaded up the project from my backup and found that I used no effects at all either in REAPER or in Edius. The only adjustment I made was a 3 dB level boost in Edius. So the sound you’re hearing is the guitar, the room, the playing, and the mic position.
***
The low noise levels are easy to achieve, I would say. Most modern mics and preamps are not going to add audible noise, my M-Audio DMP3 for instance would be as quiet as the RME inputs. Since I’m aiming for average levels around -18 dBFS when I record, I’m not pushing any part of my system. I’m lucky to live on a fairly quiet street, and I’ve moved my computer to the next room and feed cables through the wall to reduce computer noise. And I almost always do my recording quite late at night precisely because it’s quieter.
The tonal balance probably comes from two things. This guitar, a Martin OM-18GE, is really a lovely sounding instrument, *** edit *** No use of the limiter or reverb or EQ when I reloaded the project from backup and inspected the REAPER and Edius project. *** and the Barricade limiter lets me push the average level up quite transparently, and a louder sound is “warmer” to our non-linear ears.
The clarity I would ascribe to the room treatment. I’ve installed 23 4″ thick 2×4 foot panels of compressed fiberglass to absorb some of the bass buildup that happens in a small room. These panels also serve to reduce reflectivity in the mids and highs. These are classic low budget broadband absorbers and they made a lot more difference in my recordings than any mic/preamp/soundcard purchase I’ve made. I’ve posted about building the panels and about placing them around the room. I’ve also done a post about using just two of these panels to create a localized zone of reduced reflection. The Owens-Corning compressed fiberglass I use may be hard to find in the EU, I understand that various brands of rockwool work similarly and are more readily available.
I hope this information is helpful. I’ll editorialize a bit to say that when I started recording about 10 years ago the information I found on the internet caused me to think that the gear was extremely important to the result. What I’ve found instead is that experience is more important. Room acoustics and tracking levels are key issues, mic placement can vary the sound quite a bit, mic preamps and converters have little sonic impact but can certainly affect workflow.
Fran