I personally like E and A because it's possible to tune up my acoustic and play some bottleneck without changing the action; whereas tuning down to G or D does not work as well without adjusting the action on the guitar.
It is also probable that at least Open G was used in the South and called by other names, depending on who was handing it down to who and when. But Open G Spanish is also a standard traditional tuning for the five string banjo; less the sixth string. In Spanish the sixth string is a D, not a G, and is rarely used. I have always thought this was a natural transition to use this tuning on guitars in the Delta as soon as affordable guitars were available. Prior to that folk musicians played mostly mandolins, banjos and fiddles. People tend to forget that blues players played different styles of music to suit their audience in order to make a living. Gary Davis played marches, and just about any song he could play in the guitar.
As far as the G/A and D/E relationships, I think the key concept is that the intervals are the same; which means the chord and scale positions are interchangeable between these tunings. So as long as you are thinking I, IV, V, it's easy to play the same song exactly the same way. Why have both? Depending on the instrument and string tension you are comfortable with one tuning might be more comfortable than the other. I know a lot of Delta players like Big Joe Williams played in Spanish capoed up to A, probably because his strings were too heavy to comfortably tune up to open A.
Corey: I think these lessons are terrific. I think it's very important to identify really key blues techniques that reoccur in addition to learning songs. They form sort of a tool box. I thought I would offer a little clarification on the origin of the terms "Spanish" and "Vestapol", for those who are interested. They did not, actually, originate in the South. They originated during the parlor guitar craze, which was an attempt to market rather expensive parlor guitars to well-to-do families in the North East. In order to sell the guitars, they had also to provide music which was easy to learn. Spanish tuning gets it's name from what was an enormously popular song at the time called the "Spanish Fandango" and it was published in the open G tuning we call Spanish. It became associated with the song. It was not a blues song, but virtually all blues players played it because they were trying to put food on the table and they played popular songs when requested. Vestapol is actually the name of another very popular song of the period, published in Open D tuning; and the tuning became associated with that song as well. And blues players almost all played that song too. The two songs were pretty good primers on finger picking in open tunings, but they were not slide songs.
I just saw this comment, I keep coming back to this Eddie Taylor lesson. Big Bill Broonzy said something like this: imagine an Arab riding a horse (he never saw an Arab riding a horse but that was his analogy). Some ride way up front on the saddle for the most speed. Some ride sitting right on the saddle for the steadiest ride. When you ride way back in the saddle is when you start swingin.
I just noticed this comment -- I was at a blues concert a couple of years ago with some headliners and every body played all their sets with long solos around the 15th fret or so -- and to me you could not distinguish a single song, they all sounded the same. I remember one very good player, technically, kept saying things like "this is my favorite song" -- and after one verse she would then play all the same licks as the prevous song. I almost went to sleep. On the other hand I saw Muddy Waters play one night in a small blues club in Detroit in the 70s, until about 4:00 am, and I remember practically all the songs. He must have played six or seven sets with his band. He and John Lee Hooker on the same bill, in a room that had about fifty people in it. The later it got, the better it got.
Fantastic lesson Duke. This is just the kind of thing I love; right there when the delta starts to go electric. This is the kind of blues you can get in a groove with and play for days and people will listen to it for days. I just read that Magic Slim passed away a couple of weeks ago. That is another great great blues man, who inspired a lot of people. love to see a lesson one of his songs too.
As to Damian's guitar, from his description I would say it is definitely a pre-war guitar. It could have been made by any of a handful of manufacturers around Chicago or in Michigan that all made private label, no-name guitars (what they call OEM's now). Probably solid tone woods, and AGED - and that's what makes the tone in a guitar. Probably fat neck, and you should check the bracing and see if it is ladder braced. All a formula for great tone. The weakness in these guitars is generally the action. As they did not have truss rods, the neck would warp. Also many of them had basically mandolin type frets, which are playable, but we have forgotten that the guitar became a popular consumer instrument over time, and was greatly influenced by the introduction of open tunings and the popularity of the Hawaiian guitar style. So the frets were not that critical. Since your neck was broken, it probably was somewhat straightened when it was re-glued. There are also a lot of simple things one can learn to do adjusting saddles and nuts that can improve the action. If you or your Dad are handy, you can find on You Tube now instructions on how to do anything, including resetting the neck, a re-fret, etc. For myself, I find it better to slowly over time make improvements on a very old aged guitar than spending a lot of money on a new (good) guitar. If you find even a 50's Harmony Sovereign, all solid tone woods, sixty years of aging, it probably has a non-adjustable truss rod and the neck will be relatively straight. So Damian's guitar should sound great. Now all these are overpriced on Ebay these days, but you can get great guitars for practically nothing at garage, yard and barn sales.
Value to a player and price are not the same thing. Pre-war even pre-50's Stellas, Kays, Kalamazoos, Regals, Harmony's, were mass produced and economical for consumers to buy, but they were not cheap guitars by today's standards. They would all have been well designed, hand crafted, made of solid and probably aged tone woods, made in the USA. And even Gibson made instruments for private labels. Also these guitars were typically ladder braced, which is where the classic blues sound comes from, had fat almost baseball bat type necks, which have much great resonance and sustain. The combination of that neck and aged Mahagony and Spruce cannot be matched in sound by a new guitar. Kalamazoo's were Gibson guitars, with no truss rod, cheaper fingerboard material and no fancy inlays. Roy Rodgers, the great slide player, once said that if you didn't buy it in a pawn shop, it's not a blues guitar. They were also typically made with wider necks (at least 1 3/4" nut width up to 1 7/8") and were 12 fretters. This is also comfortable for older blues music because of the chord forms used down low, and the fact there is not a lot of playing up the neck. In the last twenty years there has been a return to vintage design: OM, OO, OOO, body styles, 12 fret guitars, as Corey is playing here. Even a cigar box made in the 30's was a significant object, though. It would have been hand crafted and made out of very high quality wood; and, in fact, have real acoustic qualities. One must remember that the banjo is an African instrument, having evolved from a long tradition of putting strings across a drum in a multitude of cultures. Lightnin' Hopkins made his first guitar from a cigar box and wire taken out of his screen door.
Well, I know that it's sort of esoteric. But while you can play all the same notes in standard tuning, I find that these unique tunings sort of fit the thinking of the player. In other words, having all your open strings notes in the blues scale I think influences they way one would think about soloing. There will always be choices that are affected by that. And individualized open tunings are frequently a choice of guitarists who are trying to develop something unique and different in terms of style. More common in the older acoustic blues world, But I think I saw an interview with him and he said he first got the idea to use a capo from Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, and he said - you are using a "choker." He said he never used one until then, and eventually he never played without it.
Looking at this a little more closely, the D minor uses an F instead of an F# (open D) on the third string, which is in the D blues scale; f# isn't. One advantage to this type of tuning is that you have a very linear blues scale pattern, and can traverse over two octaves within five frets. And on five of these strings your scale notes are 0,2,3,5 I think right across. So it works very well for slide but also is very compact. He also had some very unique shuffles which are a lot easier in this type of open tuning.
Great lesson. There is some controversy about his tuning, some say F minor capoed on 5th or 6th fret, but most commonly you will see him capoed on 7th fret, playing in A in an open D minor tuning. You can see him playing in D capoed on the 9th fret, and that would be I think an open F tuning. But the F minor tuning is exactly the same intervals as open D minor tuning or E minor tuning. So you would have advantage of all those great boxes used in open D and open E, which are the favorites of slide players. It's similar to open G and open A, the intervals are the same, the forms are the same the boxes are the same. So he was changing the root and the capo position to play in different keys, without changing any forms or riffs fingering wise, in relation to the capo. Of course, very unusual to use an open minor but definitely worked for him. And of course there are advantages to having three open string roots, which is why that pattern of intervals has such a strong presence in blues in general.
I personally like E and A because it's possible to tune up my acoustic and play some bottleneck without changing the action; whereas tuning down to G or D does not work as well without adjusting the action on the guitar.
I agree. Thank you for your thoughts on the topic.
It is also probable that at least Open G was used in the South and called by other names, depending on who was handing it down to who and when. But Open G Spanish is also a standard traditional tuning for the five string banjo; less the sixth string. In Spanish the sixth string is a D, not a G, and is rarely used. I have always thought this was a natural transition to use this tuning on guitars in the Delta as soon as affordable guitars were available. Prior to that folk musicians played mostly mandolins, banjos and fiddles. People tend to forget that blues players played different styles of music to suit their audience in order to make a living. Gary Davis played marches, and just about any song he could play in the guitar.
As far as the G/A and D/E relationships, I think the key concept is that the intervals are the same; which means the chord and scale positions are interchangeable between these tunings. So as long as you are thinking I, IV, V, it's easy to play the same song exactly the same way. Why have both? Depending on the instrument and string tension you are comfortable with one tuning might be more comfortable than the other. I know a lot of Delta players like Big Joe Williams played in Spanish capoed up to A, probably because his strings were too heavy to comfortably tune up to open A.
Corey: I think these lessons are terrific. I think it's very important to identify really key blues techniques that reoccur in addition to learning songs. They form sort of a tool box. I thought I would offer a little clarification on the origin of the terms "Spanish" and "Vestapol", for those who are interested. They did not, actually, originate in the South. They originated during the parlor guitar craze, which was an attempt to market rather expensive parlor guitars to well-to-do families in the North East. In order to sell the guitars, they had also to provide music which was easy to learn. Spanish tuning gets it's name from what was an enormously popular song at the time called the "Spanish Fandango" and it was published in the open G tuning we call Spanish. It became associated with the song. It was not a blues song, but virtually all blues players played it because they were trying to put food on the table and they played popular songs when requested. Vestapol is actually the name of another very popular song of the period, published in Open D tuning; and the tuning became associated with that song as well. And blues players almost all played that song too. The two songs were pretty good primers on finger picking in open tunings, but they were not slide songs.
I just saw this comment, I keep coming back to this Eddie Taylor lesson. Big Bill Broonzy said something like this: imagine an Arab riding a horse (he never saw an Arab riding a horse but that was his analogy). Some ride way up front on the saddle for the most speed. Some ride sitting right on the saddle for the steadiest ride. When you ride way back in the saddle is when you start swingin.
I just noticed this comment -- I was at a blues concert a couple of years ago with some headliners and every body played all their sets with long solos around the 15th fret or so -- and to me you could not distinguish a single song, they all sounded the same. I remember one very good player, technically, kept saying things like "this is my favorite song" -- and after one verse she would then play all the same licks as the prevous song. I almost went to sleep. On the other hand I saw Muddy Waters play one night in a small blues club in Detroit in the 70s, until about 4:00 am, and I remember practically all the songs. He must have played six or seven sets with his band. He and John Lee Hooker on the same bill, in a room that had about fifty people in it. The later it got, the better it got.
Fantastic lesson Duke. This is just the kind of thing I love; right there when the delta starts to go electric. This is the kind of blues you can get in a groove with and play for days and people will listen to it for days. I just read that Magic Slim passed away a couple of weeks ago. That is another great great blues man, who inspired a lot of people. love to see a lesson one of his songs too.
As to Damian's guitar, from his description I would say it is definitely a pre-war guitar. It could have been made by any of a handful of manufacturers around Chicago or in Michigan that all made private label, no-name guitars (what they call OEM's now). Probably solid tone woods, and AGED - and that's what makes the tone in a guitar. Probably fat neck, and you should check the bracing and see if it is ladder braced. All a formula for great tone. The weakness in these guitars is generally the action. As they did not have truss rods, the neck would warp. Also many of them had basically mandolin type frets, which are playable, but we have forgotten that the guitar became a popular consumer instrument over time, and was greatly influenced by the introduction of open tunings and the popularity of the Hawaiian guitar style. So the frets were not that critical. Since your neck was broken, it probably was somewhat straightened when it was re-glued. There are also a lot of simple things one can learn to do adjusting saddles and nuts that can improve the action. If you or your Dad are handy, you can find on You Tube now instructions on how to do anything, including resetting the neck, a re-fret, etc. For myself, I find it better to slowly over time make improvements on a very old aged guitar than spending a lot of money on a new (good) guitar. If you find even a 50's Harmony Sovereign, all solid tone woods, sixty years of aging, it probably has a non-adjustable truss rod and the neck will be relatively straight. So Damian's guitar should sound great. Now all these are overpriced on Ebay these days, but you can get great guitars for practically nothing at garage, yard and barn sales.
Value to a player and price are not the same thing. Pre-war even pre-50's Stellas, Kays, Kalamazoos, Regals, Harmony's, were mass produced and economical for consumers to buy, but they were not cheap guitars by today's standards. They would all have been well designed, hand crafted, made of solid and probably aged tone woods, made in the USA. And even Gibson made instruments for private labels. Also these guitars were typically ladder braced, which is where the classic blues sound comes from, had fat almost baseball bat type necks, which have much great resonance and sustain. The combination of that neck and aged Mahagony and Spruce cannot be matched in sound by a new guitar. Kalamazoo's were Gibson guitars, with no truss rod, cheaper fingerboard material and no fancy inlays. Roy Rodgers, the great slide player, once said that if you didn't buy it in a pawn shop, it's not a blues guitar. They were also typically made with wider necks (at least 1 3/4" nut width up to 1 7/8") and were 12 fretters. This is also comfortable for older blues music because of the chord forms used down low, and the fact there is not a lot of playing up the neck. In the last twenty years there has been a return to vintage design: OM, OO, OOO, body styles, 12 fret guitars, as Corey is playing here. Even a cigar box made in the 30's was a significant object, though. It would have been hand crafted and made out of very high quality wood; and, in fact, have real acoustic qualities. One must remember that the banjo is an African instrument, having evolved from a long tradition of putting strings across a drum in a multitude of cultures. Lightnin' Hopkins made his first guitar from a cigar box and wire taken out of his screen door.
Well, I know that it's sort of esoteric. But while you can play all the same notes in standard tuning, I find that these unique tunings sort of fit the thinking of the player. In other words, having all your open strings notes in the blues scale I think influences they way one would think about soloing. There will always be choices that are affected by that. And individualized open tunings are frequently a choice of guitarists who are trying to develop something unique and different in terms of style. More common in the older acoustic blues world, But I think I saw an interview with him and he said he first got the idea to use a capo from Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, and he said - you are using a "choker." He said he never used one until then, and eventually he never played without it.
Looking at this a little more closely, the D minor uses an F instead of an F# (open D) on the third string, which is in the D blues scale; f# isn't. One advantage to this type of tuning is that you have a very linear blues scale pattern, and can traverse over two octaves within five frets. And on five of these strings your scale notes are 0,2,3,5 I think right across. So it works very well for slide but also is very compact. He also had some very unique shuffles which are a lot easier in this type of open tuning.
Great lesson. There is some controversy about his tuning, some say F minor capoed on 5th or 6th fret, but most commonly you will see him capoed on 7th fret, playing in A in an open D minor tuning. You can see him playing in D capoed on the 9th fret, and that would be I think an open F tuning. But the F minor tuning is exactly the same intervals as open D minor tuning or E minor tuning. So you would have advantage of all those great boxes used in open D and open E, which are the favorites of slide players. It's similar to open G and open A, the intervals are the same, the forms are the same the boxes are the same. So he was changing the root and the capo position to play in different keys, without changing any forms or riffs fingering wise, in relation to the capo. Of course, very unusual to use an open minor but definitely worked for him. And of course there are advantages to having three open string roots, which is why that pattern of intervals has such a strong presence in blues in general.