# Question about power chords and alternate/drop tunings on 7 string.



## FoX KiLLa (Sep 15, 2013)

So I'm not the most experienced guitar player yet. I have a couple of different guitars as you can see. I'm taking formal lessons and learning mostly in Standard E. I've already learned some basic power chords. I understand drop tuning where you tune the E down to D and in turn change the fingering of something like the A power chord from 5-7-7 to 7-7-7, being able to play the whole chord over a single fret and with only one finger. 

Now, I'm also working on getting myself more familiar with my 7-string and playing around with just using that guitar for basic rhythm. Drop D is a pretty common tuning and I think that's where I'm going to go with for my main 6 string tuning. Now I'm looking at what I could tune the low B to that would complement the Drop D tuning.

I have heard of ADadgbe or even GDadgbe. I would like to know some advantages to those with fingerings and chords, especially if there's some single fret chords I could use that include the 7th string.

Because of what I've just written, I don't want anybody who's read this thinking I'm just learning lazy chords. This is mainly just out of my own curiosity and experimentation with different tunings and fingerings.


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## Wrecklyss (Sep 15, 2013)

with ADADGBE, your normal power 5th looks like 3-5-3 if played on ADA, 3-3-3 played on DAD, or 3-3-5 on ADG, then goes back to it's normal shape of 3-5-5.

A common 7 string drop tuning that is more similar to Drop D playing is AEADGBE.
The top three strings make one finger power chords similar to Drop D while the rest of the neck has the same shape. Hope that helps


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## Stangstag (Sep 15, 2013)

Why don't you just keep standard EADGBE, but drop the B to an A? Then you can get the low D power chord by playing 5-5-5, and you would still have the rest of the guitar standard. AEADGBE is probably the most common 7 string tuning (along with half step down and full step down versions)


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## FoX KiLLa (Sep 15, 2013)

Well, this kind of leads into a second part of my question that involves tuning to use a slightly different fingering to achieve chords. Please follow me here because I'm not ignorant of the information being shared here, just experimenting and seeing if I'm following this through in my head properly.
What I'm actually trying to figure out is how I could achieve some simple chords on the low strings with only using my middle and my ring finger. So say I'm playing a basic A power chord in Drop D


```
e -x-  
B -x-
G -x-
D -7-
A -7-
D -7-
```

But using my ring finger to hold down the D and A and my pinky on the high D to hold across the fifth fret. This may be seen as odd because a guitarist would just use their pointer or middle finger to play that chord. Now instead of pulling my ring finger off the DA, I'd pull off my pinky then place my middle finger onto the lower string then playing a chord that way. I would mostly likely have the low B tuned to something that would be half-step up because it would be placed on the lower fret. But I would, in essence, achieve a way of bouncing back and forth between drop D power chords and playing chords using the low B string without lifting off of the low D or even the A.

I hope this explains where I'm going with this. Like I said, it's mainly just a thought I had when using different drop tunings and fingerings. I just thought I'd start off with talking about 1 finger power chords before trying to complicate things by talking about alternate fingerings of these kinds of chords right away.


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## Wrecklyss (Sep 15, 2013)

that's a power chord spelled "root-fifth-octave." It works with one finger because A is the 5th of D, The D below works similar to a course on a 12 string, mirroring the root one octave up. 

If you wanted to tune and additional 5th, your low B would tune down to G, but now there is no string to mirror it, so your full power 5th requires 2 fingers.

While you have a course and a 5th for ADAD, you end up with a fourth below your root in the one finger power chord context, again requiring two fingers to get the traditional power 5th sound. I've experimented with this, but one finger power chords didn't sound right.

The easiest way to transition as a Drop D player to a 7 string is to use AEA, giving you a 5th and a course. To get the same kind of chords you get with normal drop D, add 5 frets and use more of the neck.


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## FoX KiLLa (Sep 15, 2013)

Wrecklyss said:


> While you have a course and a 5th for ADAD, you end up with a fourth below your root in the one finger power chord context, again requiring two fingers to get the traditional power 5th sound. I've experimented with this, but one finger power chords didn't sound right.



I see. Like I said, this is an experiment in fingerings for me when adding the lower string. I was thinking of something where I could slide up and down the neck without lifting fingers off to hold down the low B (or whatever it would be tuned to).


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## Given To Fly (Sep 15, 2013)

FoX KiLLa said:


> I see. Like I said, this is an experiment in fingerings for me when adding the lower string. I was thinking of something where I could slide up and down the neck without lifting fingers off to hold down the low B (or whatever it would be tuned to).



I'll be honest, I'm a little confused as to where this is all leading. I'm all for experimentation but I'm not sure what you are trying to figure out. 



> I was thinking of something where I could slide up and down the neck without lifting fingers off to hold down the low B (or whatever it would be tuned to).



If you are holding down a fret on the 7th string then you can only "slide" up and down the neck as far as your fingers will physically allow. On a practical level, this isn't very far. It also depends on what fret you are holding down on the 7th string and how it relates to the key you are playing in. There are a lot of variables at work.

If you want to play Root-5th-Octave power chords on the 6th, 5th, and 4th strings AND on the 7th, 6th, and 5th strings than the short answer is you can't, the intervals won't allow it. The closest you can get is Root-4th-Octave which can be achieved by tuning your 7th string to A; so the final tuning would be A-D-A-D-G-B-E.

You can experiment with anything you want but if you stray too far from conventional tuning practices you start to limit the usefulness of the retuned strings. With that said, if you are trying to find a tuning that works for a specific sound/song/etc. than you can pretty much do whatever you want. I played a piece which required the guitar to be tuned C#-C#-G#-C#-G#-C#-E. It worked great...but only for that one piece.


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## FoX KiLLa (Sep 16, 2013)

Basically I'm looking for chord fingerings that look like this:







That's my ring finger over the 7th fret for an A power chord and my middle finger on the 6th fret. (I'm using my pointer to hold the phone so I could take the picture.)

I guess what I'm saying is: are there are there any kinds of chords that would use the DA strings so I could use the 7th string to add to the chord simply by placing my middle finger onto it while still holding onto DA or DAD?

I'm sorry if this seemed so confusing before. It was a thought running through my head all day while I was practicing and I just really wanted to see if this was something possible.


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## Given To Fly (Sep 16, 2013)

Lowest to highest:
Bb - D - A - D - G - B - E

So the chord you are playing in the photo will be E - A - E - A.


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## wat (Sep 16, 2013)

If you tune to AEADGBE (drop A)and do power chords like this it sounds awesome:

E
B
G---7
D---7
A---5
E---5
A---5


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## FoX KiLLa (Sep 16, 2013)

wat said:


> If you tune to AEADGBE (drop A)and do power chords like this it sounds awesome:
> 
> E
> B
> ...



I see what's going on now. I wasn't sure how the chords matched up with just dropping B to A. Now I have a better idea.



Given To Fly said:


> Lowest to highest:
> Bb - D - A - D - G - B - E
> 
> So the chord you are playing in the photo will be E - A - E - A.



That's a lot more like what I had in mind. Does this translate to other power chords like G?


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## Given To Fly (Sep 16, 2013)

FoX KiLLa said:


> I see what's going on now. I wasn't sure how the chords matched up with just dropping B to A. Now I have a better idea.
> 
> 
> 
> That's a lot more like what I had in mind. Does this translate to other power chords like G?



Move your hand down 2 frets and you will have D - G - D - G.


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## FoX KiLLa (Sep 17, 2013)

This was exactly what I was talking about. Thank you very much for your time and much appreciation for this small insight.


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## Given To Fly (Sep 19, 2013)

FoX KiLLa said:


> This was exactly what I was talking about. Thank you very much for your time and much appreciation for this small insight.



Anytime!


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## TDR (Sep 19, 2013)

I'm digging AEADEAD at the moment (on a Tesseract kick)

Sounds pretty huge even when all strings are open _b


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## MF_Kitten (Sep 19, 2013)

In my experience, drop A is the best way to do drop tunings on a 7, unless you really need to play along with a guitar that's in drop D. You'll find great ways of doing things with that tuning, trust me. If not, just try the alternatives and see what works for you.


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