# Two guitars, different tunings



## Hallic (Mar 30, 2011)

Heya,

i was just philosophing about guitar tunings... Say you have 2 guitarist, and they would tune their guitars both to something different. Are there any combinations of 2 different tuned guitars that could make sense?
Are there any bands who done this?

just a thought


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## Tomo009 (Mar 30, 2011)

If I understand what you are saying, basically any two tunings would work as long as pieces are composed well. Of course it might be difficult to do unison stuff all the time though.

If you mean play the same thing but be in harmony, well I guess but it would be strange harmony. Might get an interesting effect though.


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## Prydogga (Mar 30, 2011)

Can't think of any examples where two tunings are used in conjuction with each other for the same song, but certainly in seperate tracks it would work.


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## Ill-Gotten James (Mar 30, 2011)

Tunings are tunings. The only times that I have seen guitars tuned differently are usually when the rhythm guitarist is playing some form of tuning, that results in all open strings being an open chord. The lead guitar is usually in some form of standard tuning. What I mean by "some for of standard tuning" is the lead guitar maybe tuned to another key than E, but the guitars strings will be tuned in fourths. These types of tuning two guitars differently would most likely occur in bluegrass music, where most of the rhythms are fast finger picking melodies. I could be wrong though, since I don't listen to much bluegrass and have only been to a handful of bluegrass shows.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Mar 30, 2011)

No. Impossible. It can't be done.

Nah, dude. It's the same twelve notes, why would that affect anything unless you were going with two different temperaments? My band does it all the time - we'll have one guitar in open G and the other in E standard, or drop D and E standard, and I've been contemplating getting another six string to keep in B or Bb standard. For what it's worth, we don't use tab and everybody knows what they're doing, so transposing on the fly is not a problem.


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## Aerospace274 (Mar 30, 2011)

I've worked with myself in C standard and my buddy in Open C (Not Drop C), It ain't too hard! It's preference tbh! My current band plays in E or Eb but I'll probably be playing on my 8 in G or F! (Equivalent to F tuned up and Eb tuned down)
Things just get a little jazzy when you're trying to learn something written in the other guy's tuning, but it shouldn't be a huge problem. We figure as long as we can hit the same general range on notes, it doesn't matter what our preference to tune is!


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## highlordmugfug (Mar 30, 2011)

Hallic said:


> Heya,
> 
> i was just *philosophizing* about guitar tunings... Say you have 2 guitarist, and they would tune their guitars both to something different. Are there any combinations of 2 different tuned guitars that could make sense?
> Are there any bands who done this?
> ...


Fixed.

I play in different tunings with other people all the time, the only ways in which it would pose an issue would be if:

One of them isn't good enough to play by ear, and can only play if they watch and see exactly where the other persons fingers are

OR 

If one or both of them suck at composition.


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## SirMyghin (Mar 30, 2011)

No reason you can't do it. IT requires both guitarists to know what the heck they are doing a lot better though.


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## Aerospace274 (Mar 30, 2011)

Haha that's the hard part, finding someone in this town who knows what they're doing at all and ISN'T a teacher at the local music shop is impossible. I say "Gb Diminished, Whole half" at a jam session and my buddy would be like "Huh, did you say A Pentatonic Minor? Cool, let's do it!" /facepalm


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## Varcolac (Apr 2, 2011)

I used to do this a bunch when I played in a folk band. Two acoustic guitarists in standard tuning playing the chords is pretty redundant, so I'd put a capo on at an arbitrary fret and play different inversions of the chords, so if you were in E major you'd have the first guitarist playing the chords down in first position but I'd have capo on 9th fret doing a G major shape. 

Other times I'd go DADGAD or open C, give or take a capo for ease of fingering's sake. Just gets a more interesting sound than two guitars strumming the same damn chords. 

Not sure how I'd do it in a more rock/metal setup, as the riffs are typically much more rigidly composed than folk (in which there's pretty much a melody, a chord progression and uh.. that's it) and I'm far too lazy to transpose/harmonize everything.


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## Explorer (Apr 2, 2011)

Hallic said:


> Heya,
> 
> i was just philosophing about guitar tunings... Say you have 2 guitarist, and they would tune their guitars both to something different. Are there any combinations of 2 different tuned guitars that could make sense?
> Are there any bands who done this?
> ...



There are plenty of duos, trios and larger groups which feature instruments tuned to completely different pitch ranges, although they do share their basic pitch references (like A being equal to 440HZ). I've heard some really amazing music where one guy was tuned to EADGBE and another guy had his harmonica in a standard Richter tuning. 

I've also heard some neat music where one guy was playing a guitar in EADGBE, and the upright bassist was tuned in fifths. Similarly, I've heard a banjo playing in open G, and a mandolin or a fiddle tuned to EADG high to low. 

Are you instead asking about the possibilities for two instrumentalists who want to use mostly open strings and simple fingerings to make up for lack of chops?


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## Hallic (Apr 2, 2011)

Explorer said:


> There are plenty of duos, trios and larger groups which feature instruments tuned to completely different pitch ranges, although they do share their basic pitch references (like A being equal to 440HZ). I've heard some really amazing music where one guy was tuned to EADGBE and another guy had his harmonica in a standard Richter tuning.
> 
> I've also heard some neat music where one guy was playing a guitar in EADGBE, and the upright bassist was tuned in fifths. Similarly, I've heard a banjo playing in open G, and a mandolin or a fiddle tuned to EADG high to low.
> 
> Are you instead asking about the possibilities for two instrumentalists who want to use mostly open strings and simple fingerings to make up for lack of chops?



Néh,
I was just having a thought about combing 2 guitars in different tunings. a 7 with a sixer. And how to be all baritone-voiced in relation to the sixer in some low riffs. But i guess it depends al lot on what kind of style you're playing. Having the same low root note could also be helpfull i guess, combining C standard with a Open C or Drop C. 

@all thanks for the input so far.


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## sahaal (Apr 2, 2011)

my buddies band does somehting similar, they have one guy playing an 8 string and one guy playing a normal sixer. Not sure what they use for tunings but it sounds awesome with what they write and s heavy as all fuck


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## Sephael (Apr 2, 2011)

maybe one in F and one in C playing the same fingerings


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## brutalwizard (Apr 3, 2011)

maybe just tuned a third from eachother and can play the same frets and always be playing harmonized


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## Aerospace274 (Apr 4, 2011)

My band has me on an 8 and the other guy on a 6. I just play what he does until a solo or so. Then I drop the rhythm section down to the lower strings for a more distinct sound beneath the solo. Sometimes I play the same notes as the bassist but with distortion. He's tuned a step lower then my 8th string (We play a half step down so mine is F and his is Eb) but it can sound pretty awesome. You can get some strange mood from the music like that! In D# Minor, the lower strings actually get darker in scale as they get deeper.(Even though we play usually enharmonic scales) So he might be soloing in F# Major over a dark F Locrian riff or an A# Phrygian. I like it at least! 

It's not nearly as awesome when I solo, even though the general consensus is that I'm the best in the band it'd just be so much better with some 7 or 8 string rhythm under it!


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## wslead (Apr 4, 2011)

As far as I can remember, Scale the Summit does this, The Great Plains is a great example.


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## avenger (Apr 5, 2011)

I am not really seeing a problem with having two guitars tuned to different tunings. Play in the same key and it wont matter? 

Unless you are saying play the same positions with two different tunings well then I could see some weird harmonies and then picking complimenting tunings would be essential.


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