Using Alternate Tunings For Inspiration

Alternate guitar tunings have really been helpful in my songwriting for a little while now. I use them in two ways:

• to find a deeper sound in a song I wrote in standard tuning

• to rediscover the fretboard

Let’s go over the first point:

Find a deeper sound for a song I wrote in standard tuning

I wrote a song a few months ago in standard tuning, with my capo on the 4th fret. Pretty typical folk strumming pattern, Em, G, D, Am.

It sounded great, I was happy with the lyrics and the vocal melodies I chose were a good as well. But something was bothering me…

It just sounded like any another folk song. It blended it.

I don’t want my music to blend in; I want it to stand out.

So, I decided to tune down my guitar in full C# and change the strumming pattern to build tension instead of calmness to see what would happen. This resulted in a deeper, heavier, richer sound. Much better.

The song talks about an old bicycle that needs a service, and the tone went from being melancholic and defeated to frantic and desperate, almost angry.

This is just an example of what changing your guitar’s tuning can do. Especially on an acoustic guitar, being limited in terms of effects, this trick can really work some magic into your sound.

In fact, my band Two Bad Bricks’ newest single 6 Minutes From The Radio is in full C#.

Now, let’s move onto my second point:

To rediscover the fretboard

After years of writing songs on the guitar mainly in the rock/folk/acoustic style, I sometimes start to find that everything I write sounds the same, and that sucks.

Luckily, choosing alternate tunings has really pushed my songwriting and riffs in a new direction in recent years.

I have two riff heavy songs on Spotify called Divine and I’m Nobody that are in an obscure open G tuning (I’m not even sure what to call it, GGDGBD). I initially discovered this tuning by learning “Spinning In The Daffodils”. I noticed that having the my guitar’s two lowest strings tuned on the same note (low G on 6th and G on 5th) made it easy to strum and play a riff all over the neck while singing comfortably.

I’ve played around with DADGAD as well when I learned a lot of percussion guitar stuff, it allows me to play power chords in the same fret. Open A is also a cool one.

Playing in an open or a weird alternative tuning gives you ideas. It’s like rediscovering the fretboard.

Even if it’s just changing up a single string, the challenges and restrictions of this could lead you down a route you would not have explored with your strings untouched.

A few cons to using alternative tunings…

You might need to get a second guitar or a drop pedal if you want to play these songs live. Detuning and retuning your guitar on stage isn’t the best idea. At the moment, I have 4 different tunings for a total of 8 songs on our album… I won’t lie, it’s a pain in the ass. But it’s still worth it in my opinion :)

Give it a try!

Lastly, I just dropped my debut album with my band Two Bad Bricks last week on Bandcamp! I’m very proud of the work we’ve done, and I think these are the best songs I’ve ever written.

Kim

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