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Posted by: Animosity May 4 2007, 09:18 PM

I have been looking at tablature for songs I want to work on to get out of the beginner stage of playing the guitar.

Anyway, I wanted to play the opening for "Heart Shaped Box" by Nirvana. I went to www.ultimate-guitar.com for the tablature and found the song. The only problem is the note for the song "http://ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/n/nirvana/heart_shaped_box_tab.htm" Can anyone explain what this is, and how I go about doing it? I looked at the Drop D Tuning thread but it didn't really help.

Posted by: Leviathan May 4 2007, 09:28 PM

All you have to do is find the low e string (the lowest string which is E) which is the thickest string.... and tune that to D which is one note lower than E... what I do is i pluck the E and D string and tune the e string to d...

so it goes from
EADGBE

to

DADGBE

Posted by: fkalich May 5 2007, 12:07 AM

has it roots in acoustic guitar, such as finger picking style, syncopated melody over a base line. actually a very old tuning, from the middle ages I believe. turnings are great to play with. a lot of songs came around in the old days by someone just trying a new tuning, and playing around with it. I believe that Keith Richard's of the Stones did that kind of thing a lot, just fiddled with a different tuning, and came up with a song. A lot of Black American blues/folk guitarists in the 20th century played around with a lot of different tunings, quite a bit actually. That stuff is worth listening to, some of it is pretty amazing stuff.

edit: pretty weird, after writing that, I thought of my favorite Black folk bluesman, Lead Belly. And I see Nirvana did one of his songs here....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3hBPvRoux4

A friend once told me that i only know 25% of what I think I know. After this, I think that should be elevated to 30%.

Posted by: rokchik May 5 2007, 03:16 AM

I had problems with this when I first started playing as well...but I found that most guitar tuners will allow you to tune the low E string to D without much hassel. Now, I can do it by ear like fkalich said by plucking the two strings together and adjusting the low E string accordingly. Took a bit of time though for me to get the ear for it. Personally I think everyone should have two guitars one for standard tuning and one for Drop D....my boyfriend unfortunatly disagrees with this theory...he doesn't play.

Alot of really good songs are done in this tuning.

Spoonman - Soundgarden
Killing in the Name - RATM (my personal fave of the drop D)
Born of a Broken Man - RATM
Beautiful People - Marilyn Manson
Everlong - Foo Fighters
Harvest Moon - Neil Young

just to name a few of my faves to play in Drop D.

Posted by: fkalich May 5 2007, 04:26 AM

not to out do you, but here is an extended list (I got to thinking "didn't zeppelin have one or two of those?", and in looking I quickly came across this.

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-218247.html


I think everybody should have 9 guitars, and several of them should be in alternate tunings. when I took up guitar again (after many years) i thought "well, I know I will want these, and I can either spend the next two years obsessing over if I am getting them, or I can just quickly get it over with and save time" 5 gibsons and two fenders. I kept my martin and dobro from the dark ages (the martin lifetime warranty is great, after that many years any guitar is going t need luthier work, and martin will pay for most of it). Problem is it takes 8 months to get somebody decent to work on it.

But to the point, alternate tunings are great, primarily they give you ways to use open strings. and of course for slide. one tuning I have been interested in is lute tuning. never played with it, but I think it would be more suitable for minor scale stuff. the difference is that the second string gets tuned up a semi tone, and the 3rd down a semitone. maybe I will set my dobro to that. everyone should have a dobro, they really sound cool, not just for slide.

Posted by: kahall May 5 2007, 05:01 AM

http://www.guitartools.co.uk/Tuning_guides._Over_40_different_tunings!_-_Lesson_by_Kevin_Nelson.html is a link I found while trying to figure this out myself. Lots of different tunings explained. I Drop D every once in a while just for fun.

Posted by: rokchik May 5 2007, 04:01 PM

I had a hard enough time convincing the BF I needed the Gibson let alone get 8 more....love to do it though!Great idea fkalich!

I agree though alternate tunings are great. Like you said before Keith Richards plays around with alternate tuning. I spoke with his guitar tech when they played in Halifax,NS last year. He says that Keith has guitars that if you picked them up you wouldn't even know they where tuned to play a song. I haven't played around with tuning much usually stay in standard, drop D, or tuned down a half step. I like tuning down a half. Two I'm trying to tinker with are CFCFAF. Jimmy Page used this for Brom Y'aur Stomp and Drop C. Rob Zombie I think uses Drop C a lot.

Posted by: Animosity May 7 2007, 02:49 PM

Oh so we are basically just getting rid of the low E and duplicating the D? Thanks for all the help!