Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

[Matt42]

I'm thinking about switching one of my three telecasters to Keith Richards tuning and I know there are some people around here who play that way so I thought I'd ask for any advice. I'm pretty comfortable in dobro style open-G, GBDgbd, but haven't spent much time with a more standard open G on electric guitar. I'm currently in a kinda cow-punk alt-country band. I do a fair amount of slide work with this band, so that's some of the motivation for the open tuning, but I also just want to get a different sound for a few songs.


Anyone have any advice? Something you wish you'd thought of before picking up the Keef tuning? Or something that you wish you'd realized sooner after you started playing in said tuning?

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

I used to use my old Tele Custom for slide, mostly open G. No need to over-think it, (I'm sure Keef never did, hehe) ... just set an action that's 'not-too-high, not-too-low', find a capo that works on your neck, and get started. Any tweaks you might need to make will show up quite quickly and will be easy to take care of. Try a variety of slide types to see what works and sounds good for you.

Just get started and have fun.

 

[Matt42]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

I've got a good slide that I like, so that's covered. I'll definitely have to adjust the action, I had that guitar set up fairly low before.

As far as over thinking... well... that's my specialty.

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

The slide material/ weight and the action will often be in a kind of relationship ... if you want to keep the action lower for fingering, a lighter slide might be needed .... a heavier slide may need a slightly higher action, and that may affect how it plays with the fingers.

But like I say, just tune up and get started, and these details will become self-evident as you progress.

 

[BloodRose]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

What is keef tuning? Marlboro flat???

Honest question here.. How do you play an altered tuning like that?? Ive only ever used drop d , standard or a regular drop tuning

 

[crusty philtrum]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

Honest question here.. How do you play an altered tuning like that??

You learn it. Dropped D is basically standard with only one string altered, so not too much to think about, although many chords may need to be fingered differently to accomodate the shifted notes on the bottom string.

Open chord tunings are best considered their own thing. It's like learning to play all over again as far as the fretboard is concerned.

 

[Swampy]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

What is keef tuning? Marlboro flat???

Honest question here.. How do you play an altered tuning like that?? Ive only ever used drop d , standard or a regular drop tuning

Playing Open G is actually quite easy. One finger barred is a chord. Add or hammer some fingerings on the B and/G string you've got darn near every Stones song. Give it a try.

 

[thebowl]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

Yeah, open G is actually pretty easy to play. And, if you use a slide, you really don't need a capo. Keef uses the latter because he doesn't play much slide. Irecommend that you learn some of Robert Johnson's open G stuff. Walking Blues, etc. Learn what goes on at the third, fifth and seventh frets.

 

[Matt42]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

Open G isn't as scary as a lot of people think. DGDGBD (drop the low D for Richards tuning). the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strings are the same as standard, so if you get lost you can stick to those three strings. That's what I did for a long time on lap steel until I got a feel for the 1st, 5th, 6th strings.

I probably wont capo much, if at all. I'll be using a lot of slide in this tuning, and I prefer to play closed position chords rather than open chords on electric guitar anyway. In fact, I don't think I play a single open chord on any of our songs with this band.

 

[Powdered Toast Man]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

Ah, this is actually one thing I AM good at (since I'm in a Stones tribute band). First, remove your low E string. Just take it right off the guitar. Some folks will tell you "Just tune it to D!" but no, just take it off. It's completely useless and removing it means you don't have to mute it all the time. Yes, it's sounds better when you're not muting it all the time.

Ok, now just tune your 5th string down to G and your 1st string down to D.

There's a whole lot you can do in open G! It's not as simplistic as some people make it out to be. Got to youtube and search around and you'll start picking it up.

 

[Powdered Toast Man]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

Playing Open G is actually quite easy. One finger barred is a chord. Add or hammer some fingerings on the B and/G string you've got darn near every Stones song. Give it a try.

Umm, no. Actually quite a lot of the Stones catalog is in standard tuning.

 

[Swampy]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

Umm, no. Actually quite a lot of the Stones catalog is in standard tuning.

A little facetious was I, young Skywalker.

 

[BloodRose]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

thanks for the info! Will give it a try!! thats prolly why it sounds so horrible when I try to use a slide too.. Ive always thought you use standard tuning.. Sounds like cats being tortured..
Matt42, you confused me.. (not hard to do).. you showed D G D G B D and then said drop the low D for Richards tuning.. D is dropped right? (standard is E) Or else, what am I dropping it too??

Otherwise Im reading that both the E's are dropped to D and the A gets dropped too and all else is the same. Will def try it!

 

[FuseG4]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

thanks for the info! Will give it a try!! thats prolly why it sounds so horrible when I try to use a slide too.. Ive always thought you use standard tuning.. Sounds like cats being tortured..
Matt42, you confused me.. (not hard to do).. you showed D G D G B D and then said drop the low D for Richards tuning.. D is dropped right? (standard is E) Or else, what am I dropping it too??

Otherwise Im reading that both the E's are dropped to D and the A gets dropped too and all else is the same. Will def try it!

he means remove the low D string entirely leaving only GDGBD, a five string setup. The 6th string muddies the sound and so you can just ditch it.

To really get into keef tuning, adjust the string gauges to add some bass back in, otherwise you risk sounding kinda weak. Try

G .042
D .030
G .018 (plain not wound)
B .015
D .011

 

[dystrust]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

he means remove the low D string entirely leaving only GDGBD, a five string setup. The 6th string muddies the sound and so you can just ditch it.

To really get into keef tuning, adjust the string gauges to add some bass back in, otherwise you risk sounding kinda weak. Try

G .042
D .030
G .018 (plain not wound)
B .015
D .011

+1

I kept a guitar in open G for a while and can absolutely confirm that the low D string provides nothing but useless mud. I didn't hear until later that Keef removed the string, but I immediately understood why he did so.

 

[Swampy]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

An easy song to do in Open G is Twice as Hard/Black Crowes. It's a fun song with slide parts and chord parts.

 

[Liam1963]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

I have my own version of Micawber set up, Telecaster with a Seymour Duncan Antiquity in the neck, and a Hot Rails for Tele in the bridge, go up a string gauge, take the low-E off of the guitar, tune to Open-G 5 string, and you can play some really cool slide bluesy stuff as well as the Black Crowes / Stones stuff, I think the first two Keef songs I learned were "Happy" and "Brown Sugar"...

 

[davenav]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

Keef once said, "Five strings, three notes, two fingers, and one arsehole to play it."

 

[Matt42]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

I have my own version of Micawber set up, Telecaster with a Seymour Duncan Antiquity in the neck, and a Hot Rails for Tele in the bridge

That actually make me wonder about pickups for this guitar. I was thinking about doing a Phat Cat in the neck and QP in the bridge. They seem like they would be slide friendly pickups.

 

[Liam1963]

Re: Switching a guitar over to Keith Richards tuning... advice?

That actually make me wonder about pickups for this guitar. I was thinking about doing a Phat Cat in the neck and QP in the bridge. They seem like they would be slide friendly pickups.

I did experiment with a few different varieties of pickups, the current set (Antiquity and Hot Rails) gave me a nice clean sound, but I could overdrive them either with amp settings or a pedal quite easily....