This is my first real exploration of the standard guitar tuning (E2-A2-D3-G3-B3-E4), since I have cut my teeth and done all my real learning with the Guitar Craft standard tuning (C2-G2-D3-A3-E4-G4). So, this is probably really old hat to most people, but I find it interesting enough to document. (Please, then, excuse the pedantry.)
I'm trying to learn a right-hand discipline that I do not yet understand, having trained myself to use a flat pick in mostly single-note mode. Consequently, I've been thinking primarily melodically--or at least, monophonically, about how the string intervals should work. It's really helped to have the regular intervals (ascending fifths, in my case), acting as an anchor point to develop and refine my sense of where those notes are, and in this effort it's quite nice if you have regular intervals you can count on.
But lo and behold, in looking more at some of even the simplest exercises of, say, "plucking chords" with thumb and three fingers, alternative ways of looking at this just kinda jump right out. Multiple ways. Polyphonic ways. And so I never really noticed a couple of things about the mojo of the standard tuning, at least from a fingerstylist's point of view:
- The top three strings are an Em triad, with the m3 in the bass and the root on top. Wholly aside from having a convenient barred minor triad available, for someone who is very interested in open-string harmonics, here's a convenient way to play three strings at once and get a minor chord in harmonics, in a dramatic voicing, and the technique can quickly become automatic. (A little improvising here made it immediately obvious how much has been done using exactly that little tidbit. Again: duh.)
- Strings 4, 3, and 2 comprise a G major triad, with fifth in bass and third on top. Further, that chord happens to be the relative major of the above Em of 3, 2, and 1. Now that is handy, again especially when you may want to ring out the open strings or open-string harmonics. And again, it falls right under the "home position" of the i-m-a fingers.
- Breaking things down further into two-string pairs (as I did a chord-plucking exercise which featured "blocking" two fingers against the thumb, instead of three) yielded another way of looking at this. Strings 2-1 are either an ascending fourth from I to IV, or an ascending fourth from V to I. I'd never thought of looking at it that latter way, even though I've known for a long time that a fourth is an inverted fifth. The voicing of V-I is a powerful voicing, especially on rising harmonics. Double duh. And then, suddenly, I could see how it is that the major interval in the otherwise-all-fourths tuning, actually produces a very useful minor chord once you exchange roots.
So I'll be mulling on this one for a while, and hopefully trying a lot out. I do need to find out the essential logic of how fingerstylists play fast melodic lines; if that can be integrated with the very simple things I'm seeing here, then this should be a pretty wild ride.
On a different note, I do notice that I am having a hard time applying these initial fingerstyle exercises to the acoustic fretless, and it seems to be primarily a function of string spacing. I'm starting to get the logic, too, of the classical instrument's string spread at the bridge; the fretless' spread is scant even by electric guitar standards. Maybe that axe will wind up a five-string after all!
Okay, that got documented and my embarrassing secret is out--I may have missed all this before, but I'll start from where I am and go with it now. :-)
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