Tony's big Moment - and an IBMA HoF induction, too.

What is it I love about bluegrass?  Plenty, actually, but this is an outstanding illustration of at least one of the reasons:  magnificent humanity.

To nobody's surprise, Tony Rice was inducted into the IBMA Hall of Fame, and through the magic of YouTube, we can all see how this went down.

I am not given to awards ceremonies.  They're dull, and usually reek of a sense of unwarranted entitlement among both audience and recipients.  When I stumbled across this link, it was merely the wanting to hear what Rice had to say, that caused me to make the effort.  I'm glad I did.

Turns out that the presenters were Peter Rowan and Sam Bush, and this definitely helped in making the introduction interesting.  Rowan, for all his obvious talents, still strikes me as pure space cadet, but Sam is a genius combination of little boy, master gentleman, ridiculous musical talent--and a savvy understanding of personalities.  And it shows here.

Then Rice came on, delivering the same upfront humility that I have seen so often in other contexts.*  Great, lovely.  But then, at about the eleven minute mark in the YT video, he begins a lead-up to a capital-M Moment that I was completely unprepared for.

If you hear nothing else, listen starting at 11:00 on the timeline.  At the 12:38 mark, he simply blasted my socks off--not with what he said (although that is, itself, beautiful), but with the voice he said it in.

This is what human beings are capable of.


_____________________
* All of this is much more interesting and poignant the more you know about the backstories of each of the names that come up;  it throws everything into much sharper definition.  Suffice it to say that magnificent human beings don't always start out that way, and sometimes they do regrettable things.  But if the measure of a character is what someone does in the wake of any of that, then I'm even happier to see Rice honored for his influence here. 

Brubeck, Take Five.

Stumbled across this YT of Dave Brubeck's quartet performing "Take Five" only a few years after it was first released.

Most interesting.  My first impression is that it's too fast to let the tune really breathe.  For me at least, one of the many brilliances of "Take Five" as originally recorded is that it is just at the edge of as-fast-as-possible, but distinctly under it.  Whenever I sit down with the piece myself, I tend to like it slower and slower, regardless of my ability to play it.  There are so many little ridiculously tasty nuances that Desmond puts into both the melody and the blowing...and they necessarily race past, here.

Now, that said:  I quite love this.  You can get a much greater appreciation for Morello by watching him, and he is on fine display here.  Desmond does a great job at handling the higher tempo, although to my ear he sounds like he feels rushed, even when blowing.  It's great to watch Brubeck play, even though this tune is not a vehicle for him.  I don't know much about Gene Wright;  from long listening I would pay him the compliment that I never really notice the bass in Brubeck's recordings.  (I tend to think of bass players in three simple categories:  the ones who grate on me, the ones I never "notice", and the ones that may not in fact be human.  That middle category may be the working definition of excellence in craft.)  As a group:  pretty solid, to be sure!

Anyway, I wanted the YT to be available here.

Tuck Andress, ninja master.

Hotel Foxtrot Sierra, how is it that I have not paid any attention to Tuck Andress until now?

I need to document the series of YouTube videos that someone has made from what must have been a VHS tape.  They are phenomenally dense, in terms of what they present;  Andress has a master instructor's poise and delivery, which wholly aside from his jaw-dropping guitar mastery is simply impressive to watch.

The first video is here:

Other ones in the series seem to go to volume nine, and those were all just gold-mines of information.  This short captures an example that Andress makes of his technique of playing multiple parts at the same time:

The guy really is a Jedi Master of guitar-fu.  And in addition to all the instructional stuff, it's equally inspiring just to watch him play:

Well.  If it took me this long to discover this resource, I'll damn sure see if I can make the most out of the discovery now.  :-)

Strength in Numbers on YouTube

More documenting.  Again from YouTube, this old jewel about newgrass supergroup Strength in Numbers, which features a rousing performance of "Blue Men of the Sahara" starting at 2:38.

I first saw it on a VHS in the early days of my attending the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and of course what immediately struck me about the performance was the interplay between Edgar Meyer (bass) and Mark O'Connor (fiddle).  Edgar is full "goad mode on" here, and O'Connor just tears it up.

At the time, my wife (who wasn't exactly heavy into bluegrass) commented that that fella may look like a truck driver at first glance, but then he does things you don't usually expect truck drivers to do.

And then some.  O'Connor does things you don't usually expect mortal human beings to do.

Still here...

...and for the first time in a long while I got some good time--that is, time enough actually to start listening--in with an instrument.  In this case it was the SoloEtte, still tuned in DADFAD, through the iPhone and the Line 6 MobileIn interface.  (The open minor seems to suit me pretty well.)

Very percussive feeling today--most likely some frustration working itself out.  A few discoveries about the tuning's geometries, which hopefully I'll be able to follow up on soon.  Also some hand mechanics fell a little more into place;  based upon John Danley's Satori being stuck in my head, I learned a couple of things about the Preston Reed-style "over the fingerboard" left hand which are intriguing.  (I may have to study Tractor Pull a little more.  :-)

Episodes like this seem to serve two purposes.  First, they frustrate me greatly as I am reminded that the state of being "all ideas, no discipline" is severely limiting.  Gah! 

On the other hand, they also can fuel me so that I can survive these agonizingly long periods between sessions.

Wankery with BbFCGDG

Spent a little time with Bb1-F2-C3-G3-D4-G4 again today, both open and with partial capos (003333, 033333, 001111, and 444400.  I think I'm going to like this tuning.

Started working with Scott Tennant's Pumping Nylon, and I think that book is going to be a big eye-opener for some right hand techniques.  My fingers are starting to find some comfort in scale runs, but studying Tennant's work may be a quicker path there.  Very well, exercises then.  Not a bad thing.  :-)

Tried to pick up the G-major Bach Cello Prelude again and some of it fell quite naturally into the fingerstyle idiom.  I think it may be good for me to get a couple of old tunes back into the fingers with this new style, in addition to the structured exercises and some good old fashioned wankery.  At some point (soon, I hope) I'll start to put some recording mojo into place.  (The upstairs office is only a session or two away from this possibility, and I'm starting to taste it.)

Anyway, to document.  Tonight I spent most of my time in minor mode, trying to feel fingers, rhythm, transitions, and movement between techniques (slap harmonics, straight notes, popped harmonics, rasgueados, etc.);  there's a lot just in there that I'll have to pay attention to.  But it's coming.

Thoughts: 

• Keep the classical in standard tuning, at least through working with Tennant's book.  
• Until reconfiguring as a 5-string, string the Guitalong in 6 nylons, D3-D2-A2-E3-B3-E4, standard string set with "4th string" on 6,  "6th string" on 5, and "5th string" on 4.  Give that a shot.
• I'm liking the idea of working up the SoloEtte as "do-all" instrument, with GraphTech Ghost system and one or two mag pickups for ebow.  That could be a nice arrangement.

Now:  sleep.

Still here.

Lots of ideas right now, but little discipline.  That should change fairly quickly, as I was reminded that there is an ongoing open mic at Alice's recently, and it would be wise of me to make sure that the girls, at least, start to see more of Dad up on stage.  That may be an adequate rallying cry to get things moving;  whatever it is, I'm game. 

Recently got hold of a Planet Waves "Trio" partial capo, which is good for either four or five outer strings:

Based on the limited look I've given it so far, this may become a real workhorse.  Capoed 001111 in the C2-G2-D3-A3-E4-B3 tuning I've had the Ovation in lately, that makes a really nice open Cm11 with roots on sixth and first strings, with some lovely minor intervals for the offset harmonic nodes.  Then, today, testing out a new tuning Bb1-F2-C3-G3-D4-G4 capoed 003333 on the SoloEtte (for a Bbsus across open strings and more open intervals across the offset harmonic nodes), I was struck again at how nice it is to have predictable notes above the capo.  Going back to the Ovation, I turned things around and capoed 444400 (which would be what, E6/9 I think?  It's late) and quickly found some really nice major mode territory to play with.  Yeah, I think I'll like this 4-stringer.

Need to order the 1- and 2-string "G-Bands" for capoing one and two outer strings, and get the Shubb "Esus" partial capo for stopping three adjacent inner strings.  With those four capos in the arsenal, along with the Third Hand, one should be able to do everything that you can do with a partial capo, and I'm looking forward to trying them all out.  It's a nifty idea!

Wanted to document the tunings I'm currently working with, so I don't forget:

• C2-G2-D3-A3-E4-B3.  All fifths, but with the wrinkle of the first string being lower than the second.  Jury's still out on this one in the melodic sense, but harmonically it is really nice having three four-string groups all in fifths, and the top four strings now put the third degree on top in the most convenient "root inversion" shape.  And that 001111 partial capo is intoxicating.
• Bb1-F2-C3-G3-D4-G4.  Huge range, but starting to get funky with string gauges.  Even with a 59 on the sixth string, that's a bit floppy, and on the other hand that high G (the same G that the Guitar Craft uses for the first string and twelve-stringers use for the third-string octave) is either too tight for good slap harmonics, or might start to lose real volume with a suitably tiny string gauge.  (The second-octave and major-third harmonics on the G string, capoed up to Bb, are some high notes.  :-)   Jury's out on this one too, but I'll play with it some more.  Melodically I do like that fourth "on top", because if your root note is the open first string, the second string is the fifth degree, down.  That's got some conveniences.
• D3-D2-A2-E3-B3-E4.  This one occurred to me today, for nylon-string instruments, whose string-gauge requirements are much more of a challenge than steel-string ones.  The idea is to have a core four-string group, all fifths, in the middle, for melodic work and basic chord construction, letting the sixth and first strings perform outlier tasks.  The first string is a fourth up from the second, giving that V-I option that is such a strength of standard tuning, and also enabling both convenient power chords as a 3-string barre over 1-2-3 and also convenient octaves on 1 and 3 (that latter sounds nice).  The sixth string, on a nylon, is just not going to go down to G1 (nor is the first string going to go much above E4), so why not make that an octave too, a la the "Aerial Boundaries" tuning but in reverse?  I'll string up the beater classical with that arrangement and see how it goes.

Okay, time for sleep.  Got some ideas for re-purposing the instruments into different roles, and it seems that the next instrument that I will need will be a twelve-string--based on a little poking I did while on a recent trip Outside.  Again, many ideas, little time, and less discipline.

Time to change that.  Some of these ideas are worth pursuing.  :-)

Sartori in Tangier: documenting a wee bit o'Crim.

Ran into this late last night, when I needed some real, honest-to-God noise.

Wow.  Robert delivers.

I've always loved this tune, even before I ever heard a live recording of it.  And then, when I finally did...well, there is just no preparing for what you see when you watch the 80s King Crimson do this piece live.  The first time I did, my internal monologue went something like this:

Wait, Belew's on drums?  But the whole theme is there...no, Robert's not playing anything yet...holy shit, that's all Tony?  What the...yes, yes it is.  Okay then, who's going to play the keyboard part?  Okay, there it's winding up, but who's doing it?  Robert's nowhere near a key-...oh, he's playing it through the guitar?  Yeah, well, that's kind of like the sound on the record, or rather it was a minute ago before he added another power grid's worth of "live wire" sound on his way up the ramp...and HFS, just look at him go!  Either he's going to pop an aneurysm, or I am, because this is just unbelievable.

At the time I had no idea what a guitar synthesizer was, and the only live Crimson I'd heard before was of the '70s band, which featured an actual keyboard (Mellotron), so I was just not ready for those sounds to go with that picture.  But hell, there they were, and anyone who has heard both the studio recording and any live performance from that period can tell you they are two completely different animals.  While absolutely being the same tune.

There's a lot of King Crimson that works well--really well--when my head needs to just light off a flamethrower and torch noise with noise.  "Sartori" is at least near the tippy top of the heap, and may actually rest there.  Here it is, as a document, if nothing else.

Soul food...for a week, at least.

Pardon my French, but fuck a duck.

Just listen.  Closely.  With attention.  And marvel at what human beings are capable of.  The phrase, "that band is tight" is simply wholly inadequate to describe what happens here.

The unaccompanied piano solo is a masterpiece;  by itself it will eat your brain while it feeds your soul. The band's re-entry and continued piano feature is magnificent;  these gents are smooth.  Then, just when you think they're spent, there's one of those capital-M moments between Cohen and Guiliana, even with the rock'n'roll style crescendo:  you get both!

This performance is much less about the tune than about the improv, which in one way is a bit of a shame, since "Nu Nu" is such a strong melody and groove, but hell, there are other performances that showcase that.  (For the original recording with "lead oud", go here;  for a great balance between the tune and the blowing, try this one.)  It's not every band that will really hang it out there on the improvs, but this trio will do it--bless 'em--and if YouTube is any indication, they can smoke.

This is one of the strongest groups I've seen in a long time.  Check out their command of eleven in this thoroughly beautiful piece:

I have got to get the chance to see them live.  Gah, now I'm inspired.

For at least a week.  :-)

The great Partial Capo Experiment begins.

And so a very good man, Steve Cornish, did sell me a Third Hand capo this evening,

and verily I did place it upon my Ovation (strung to C2G2D3A3E4B3) in the initial position 220000, and began to play.

Oh dawggy, this is going to be an interesting ride.

I'm exhausted now--was tired when I started this, but like hell I was going to go to sleep without at least trying it out--but nonetheless tonight I tried 220000, 220002, and 001111.  With the 220002 configuration I also brought the first string up a half-step so that the open pitches were DADAED, which was interesting to say the least.

Very eye-opening session.  Harvey Reid is the primary advocate of the partial capo, and he seems to have a lot of ideas about how to use it.  Most interesting for me is the concept that open pitches can be altered while notes up the neck remain the same, and you know what, that shit works!  It opens up all kinds of open position fingerings you never thought of, while retaining the ability to play all the closed positions that you already know, up the neck.  I was kind of expecting some cool factor on open string drones and bass notes, but I had not expected the impact it would have on melodic phrasing, especially in that "C-minor" centric arrangement of 001111.  On the guitar (as opposed to the mandolin) the stretch to hit the m3 interval from a root note on the 5th fret of the next lower string is, indeed, a stretch, but with with a 001111 partial capo, you've got very comfortable access to that m3 and m7 and it's niice.  Sure, technically you "lose" the major second, or rather you must now play it stopped on the root string, but this is a surprisingly easy tradeoff.  My fingers just figured it out spontaneously, and then started playing things they don't normally gravitate toward.  And then to go up the board you just...go up the board, find your root note, and play like you normally would.  (Well...like someone who likes to tune the guitar in fifths would.  :-)

Harmonics are going to be absolutely wild with this, and I suspect I'm going to have to just treat them separately for each possible configuration.  Having an arrangement where the nodes offset each other from string to string is probably going to spawn some interesting stuff, and I look forward to it.

More to come.  Just offhand I'm interested in checking out partial capoing over the third, fourth and fifth frets as well, and should start to experiment with some altered inner strings.  Who the heck knows where it might lead?

Monster in the making.  (Or, at least, inveterate geek.)

Trick question.

Question:  What's the most amazing thing about this new vid from Antoine Dufour?

Pause, for a moment, to pick your jaw up off the floor.  (It always takes me a minute.  :-)

Answer:  it fades out.  To me, that can only mean one thing:  he wasn't satisfied with how he concluded the piece.

Somehow, that just strikes me as riotously funny.

Ovation's now in CGDAEB

That is, C2 G2 D3 A3 E4 B3.  In playing a bit with it tonight (brain dead) I found myself making more use of the B3 than the C4, outside of harmonics in Am (and those do sound lovely).  I've tasked Steve Cornish with acquiring a couple of partial capos, including the single- and double-outside string models and the Third Hand, so the Great Partial Capo Experiment can get underway.  A lot of possibles there, including a D-centric capo on 2 2 0 0 0 0 (or, for an open Dm7, 2 2 0 0 1 1).  Interestingly, I found that barring the F and C notes on the first and second strings and then slapping the harmonics gave me a lot of what I was looking for in the first place, although there are definite timbre differences between slapped and popped harmonics and I'd probably want to have access to them both.

I've got a funny feeling about this tuning, with partial capos.  It will be this that I use to go through Scott Tennant's book Pumping Nylon, to build up a little competence with fingerstyle playing, and it will be interesting to see how things develop.  I do know where those notes are in fifths, and having that first string lower than the second is interesting in the "upper" voicings.

Strings are phosphor bronze, 59w - 46w - 30w - 22w - 12p - 16p.  I'm once again tempted to try electric flatwounds and see how they play as well.  If I'm adopting a lighter style and amplifying it, this may be of minor concern.

Onward.  Let's see what happens!

Another tuning thought: what about CGDAEC?

A quick post to document a thought that hit me last night.

What about C2-G2-D3-A3-E4-C4?

Disadvantages:

• First string is lower in pitch than the second;  which could theoretically get confusing.
• Without a fourth interval between the second and first strings, you do lose that beautiful ascending V-I option (especially with harmonics).
• Low C may be optimistic with nylon strings (but is fine for steel).

 Advantages:

• All the fifths relationships of the Guitar Craft tuning (C2-G2-D3-A3-E4-G4).  Two complete four-string groups in fifths, allowing lots of fifths-based scale thinking and chord construction with no need to "skip strings".
• For fingerstyle, a minor triad on the top three strings.  With this voicing, at least some common alterations may present very convenient left-hand fingerings.
• First and sixth strings are two octaves apart.  Lots of people playing standard tuning and DADGAD take advantage of this.
• The first string becomes a simple pivot between CGDAEC (root position Am triad on top 3 strings) and CGDAEB (GAD intervals on top 3 strings).  Or, for that matter, CGDAEC# (A major triad) or even CGDAED (which is theoretically another GAD variation).  Total retuning movement for the first string here is a minor third--very do-able--and well within the range of appropriately-gauged strings.  And, the GAD variations re-capture the ascending V-I arrangement.
• The possibles of using these intervals with partial capoing seem immense, almost intimidating--and yet above whatever capo(s) are placed, I've still and always got five strings in fifths to work with.

Hm.  Velly intellesting.

I will have to try this out.  Since I don't have years of fingerstyle under my belt yet, it may be that I can adapt to this easily enough to take advantage of the benefits.  The more I think about it, the more interesting it seems:  the first string is the only thing that ever "moves", and yet it seems like there are four very individual tunings there. 

Django and Stephane.

Say what you want about YouTube--it's probably true.  But this--this--has to go way, way up in the plus column:



Just magnificent.

And because I'm just so fond of the tune, here's audio of Minor Swing:



What a treasure.  Two of the most important musical influences of the twentieth century, and you can immediately see and hear why.

Rest in peace, fellas.  We miss you.

Kaki King, stylist.

There is a reason this woman is such an important stylist.  More than anyone else in the "percussive acoustic" genre that I've heard thus far, she throws in unexpected little phrases that are unsettlingly "not right", and yet they are perfect.  If you only heard it once, it would be tempting to call it an elegantly-handled mistake (via Tom Redmond:  "If you play a wrong note, play it again"), but no, this happens too often to be unintentional.

The following contains a couple examples of this, and is otherwise just a beautiful piece, excellently played.  She lulls you in, and then hits your ears with a "wait, what was that?" and then is back.  It's a nice touch here, too, on a reasonably conventional fingerstyle composition. 



The more I hear from King, the more that I hear this as what makes her unique among her peers.  You get the same sort of thing in her flashier, percussive work, or in her brooding improvs--all of it.  I think at some level I just like her particular choice of dissonances (and love the fact that she seems to improvise them), but still:  when the "wait, what was that?" question arrives from the ears to the brain, it's reliably King who is playing.

Flat picker Dan Crary has long impressed me with his stylistic signature of inverting the third in a common tune, after the melody has been firmly established:  suddenly, he's playing the same piece in parallel minor, which is a really nice aesthetic touch in bluegrass, and he'll usually return to the original arrangement to close out.  It's a simple device, really, but Crary has made it a recognizable style point, and it's almost always effective without being ham-fisted or even "leaving the genre".  What King does strikes me as very similar, but she'll charge right out into chromatic territory without warning (rather than employ airbrakes with more "tonal approaches" like parallel substitutions and quick modulations), and, well, your ears just need to keep up.  That can very, very easily fall flat on its face, or quickly get cliched and predictable (e.g., if the chromatic phrase always leaned on the flat-five), but somehow King avoids it, and it usually works.

I'm impressed, and aspire.

Take Five: the reunion

I am really happy to be working with a mandolin student (I'll call him G.) again.  Not only does it give me a way to help with all the noise in my head, but it gives me an excuse to start looking for repertoire that will be useful in multiple contexts:  performing, technique, theory, and improvisation.

This is where Dave Brubeck's (actually Paul Desmond's) "Take Five" is an absolute masterpiece.  For starters, it's already a masterpiece;  probably the catchiest tune counted in five that most people will ever hear, it's a beautiful vamp with a brilliant chorus, and capped off by an astonishingly beautiful and compact alto sax solo.  But it's also a total treasure trove of examples and illustrations;  if you need to explain a concept in basic music theory,  this tune may well have it. 

Like many string players, I prefer it transposed up a half-step (to Em) for convenience, but a great way to test yourself once you're comfortable with the piece, is to go try it in the original E-flat minor (which is what's convenient for the alto sax).  Most of us find that using all closed shapes takes a real conscious effort, and it's worth testing yourself on.  (I'll consider it G.'s 'final exam' for the piece.  Poor guy.  :-)

So tonight, after a long time away from Take Five (which I first approached with Guitar Craft Standard Tuning guitar, CGDAEG), I sat down with the mandolin and hashed a bunch of things out.  First and foremost:  man, what a fantastic piece of music that is.  Improvising on it is simply intoxicating. 

I worked through the melody in the first two available octaves, and will eventually work into the third.  Here, I let the horn phrasing determine the right fingerings, which can be a little more convenient on the smaller instrument, and it will be good to be able to show G. an example of how you get to choose which fingerings you want to use.

G. is currently working through diatonic triads, and I will probably just use the "trust me" logic in trying to go through the vamp chords (Em and Bm7);  I can't decide whether it would be better to explain the Bm7 itself, or just tell him to play a D chord instead.  (The root-in-bass voicing of the Bm7 is easy;  it's the other inversions that may get confusing at speed.)  At any rate, there are plenty of Em and Bm7 chords available on the neck.

I'll have G. improvise over this simple two-chord vamp;  that alone could take a goodly amount of time and lots of questions.  Not only does he have to figure out where his Em notes are, but he can't fall back on a four-count as a crutch!  (On the other hand, if he can hold in 4, I just might jump in with a 5 and we'll get us a polyrhythm going.  :-)

The chorus, of course, will take a little time;  first we'll work the chords:

Triads first:
C - Am/C - Bm - Em/B - Am - D/A - G - G
C - Am/C - Bm - Em/B - Am - D/A - F#m - B

Then, the chords as written:
Cmaj7 - Am6 - Bm7 - Em7 - Am7 - D7 - Gmaj7 - Gmaj7
Cmaj7 - Am6 - Bm7 - Em7 - Am7 - D7 - F#m7 - B7
(on the mandolin, we do tweak voicings a bit to deal with "only" four strings)

and once he's got that, we can go over exactly what that beautiful descending movement of chords is actually doing.  On the melody side, there's a chromatic example in every measure which is great for listening, and again we'll try it in at least two octaves, ideally with different fingerings.

At some point we'll deconstruct the solo too, especially Desmond's delicious phrasing, and the various techniques that one can use to play that on the mandolin (yes, vibrato is possible on the little beastie, and worth it!). 

It will be interesting to see how he handles it--and I have to remember, myself, not to try and do too much too fast.  First, a score he can read and chords he can see.  Then, setting the vamp.  Then the melody.  Then improv.  Then the chorus, either melody or chords first (don't know which yet) and finally the solo and improv over the chorus.

All followed by E-flat minor, which all but removes his open strings as options.  (I'm a stinker, that way.)

Another DGAD revelation - harmonics

Amazing, what sits right in front of your face until you just notice it.

This morning, out of the blue, it occurred to me to actually take a structured look at the second, third and fourth natural harmonics (that is, harmonics on frets 7, 5, and 4) on the GAD strings and see what, if anything, it told me.  (I've been improvising by ear for a little while now, but hadn't really analyzed the "just what notes are available?" question.)  So I wrote it out.

Uh. 

How about that complete D scale?  (And by extension, notes in the mixolydian mode of A, lydian mode of G and aeolian mode of B.)  And if the tuning is actually DGAD, that D scale can be sounded entirely in the same octave, with the major third (F#, in this case) available on the fourth string as well as on the first.

Brain spinny.  Cogitation and experimenting to follow.

Hm.  Now I'm wondering about the use of two Xtenders, one on the fourth string and one on the third.  A basic tuning of Bb1-F2-D3-G3-A3-D4, with the fourth string dropping to C3 and the third dropping to F3, would seem to give lots of options:

• BbFDGAD.  With partial capo 110000, it's D/B with some cool options for Bm.  With partial capo 220000, it's CGDGAD.  With partial capo 440000, it's DADGAD.  The tradeoff would seem to be dealing with the major sixth interval between fifth and fourth strings up the neck, which would be disruptive to scale runs.  That is:  this tuning would probably dedicate the two bass strings to a bass function, and focus on both harmonic and melodic figures out of the DGAD strings.
• BbFCGAD.  This is simply CGDABE a whole step down, by which I am still very intrigued.  A full set of four strings in fifths allows fifths-thinking for melody (including the separated fifth on strings 3 and 1), expansive chords in the bass and GAD chords on top.  The only things this would seem to give up are the conveniences of that "D-scale-in-harmonics" and the comfortable root-on-top seventh shape that DGAD provides.
• BbFCFAD.  CFAD is standard-tuning intervals a whole step down, and brings the conveniences of a Dm triad on the top three strings and the relative major (F) triad on 4-3-2.
• BbFDFAD.  This may make a great Dm tuning, with multiple inversions of Dm available on open strings.  

I just need to get my hands on a couple of Xtenders and nut and saddle blanks from GraphTech (for best lubricity on the detunable strings), and try this stuff out.  :-)

Exercises and improvising

Have taken some precious guitar time in the last few days, split between diagnostic exercises and improvising.  Tunings have been CCDGAD ("Aerial Boundaries"), BF#DF#C#C# ("Raindigger") and CGDABE. 

The exercises have mostly been centered around 1) the two-finger approach to fingerstyle scale playing, and 2) more work with GAD triads.  Man, do I have a lot of work to do with all this, but I grow more convinced that it's something I want to add to the repertoire and perhaps even specialize in.  There is a real "rightness" and pure visceral pleasure to playing this way, and the options for development seem limitless.

The improvising has been fantastic, if brief.  I would never have guessed how quickly I'd take to improvising in multiple different tunings, but some really cool things have even been coming out of the "Raindigger" guitar.  (Cool to me, of course.  It's absolutely in the "wankery" category and just as well that I develop it much more before subjecting others...)  I'm taking time to see how I can get second, third and fourth harmonics to play off stopped and open notes, and with that tuning in particular, dramatic inserts are almost always available to an open finger.  With the harmonics in particular, it's amazing how many different timbres you can get from "the same note" by using 1) fingernail only upstroke 2) fingernail/fingertip upstroke 3) fingertip upstroke 4) fingernail flick downstroke 5) thumbnail 6) thumbnail/thumb tip 7) thumb tip or 8) finger tap--and any of those can be at various angles.  Fingerstyle gives a lot of options for dynamics as well, that I hadn't anticipated.  Pretty cool!

On the "GAD" tunings, I'm starting to reach a basic comfort with the triads and am starting to diagram the most convenient diatonic sevenths.  I'm still not totally sold on whether it would be best to go with "DGAD" or "CGAD" on those intervals, and it may hinge on whether or not the seventh forms on the GAD strings are usable in themselves, or whether I really need a fourth string.  (e.g., a m7b5 form arguably needs all four tones to distinguish itself;  are there enough such needs that it would outweigh the utility of a four-string group all in 5ths for melody work and for mandolin-like chords?)  What is becoming apparent is that I like some of the features GAD gives me, for improvising.  I find myself making use of that flat-five pivot on the second string, and being able to sound a whole-tone interval in harmonics is really nice in some contexts.

We'll see what comes next.  Right now I'm pretty limited in what I know about the tuning, and yet some really nice stuff manages to sneak out, easily.  As I get the top strings sorted out, I'm looking forward to seeing how to add some independent bass lines, and then also to see how melodic things work when I transfer back and forth between the regular-interval strings and these top ones.

Should be fun!

A moment.

Took a little time at lunch today to try approaching fingerstyle scales using the "two-finger" method I've read about.  In a nutshell, the logic seems to be "devote two fingers to the scale run on any given string", starting with i-m, but could also be m-i, i-a, a-i, m-a, or a-m.  There's actually a lot more variation in that than might be immediately obvious, and one can get a little intimidated by the "what to use when?" question.  I suspect the logic here is that when playing a run your goal is to reduce the possibles (also at that point it becomes like the up- and downstrokes of plectrum playing);  what I'm less sure about is when and if three fingers becomes a preferred option--is this at all tied in somehow to the idea that most string intervals are a fourth or less, and therefore you'd never need more than three notes per string?

I will definitely need some more work with the "descending" patterns of the RH fingers (so:  the a-m, the a-i, and the m-i), but I can see where they might come in handy.

After focusing on this for a few minutes, I let it vary a little bit, and started improvising on the CCDGAD guitar I happened to pick up.  Not five minutes into this, a moment happened.

I was playing mostly out of a G natural minor scale over the third and first strings, and observing my right hand, I started to see the third finger enter the mix, naturally and spontaneously.  That is, sometimes I'd be using two fingers, quite naturally over the two separated strings, and other times that third finger would just show up when it was needed, and not necessarily just for rhythmic changes.  It would then drop out for a bit and then re-engage as "necessary".

! ! !

I can't speak for anyone else, but moments like that can pump me for weeks or more.

Playing devil's advocate, I shifted gears a bit, and started to try moving back-and-forth between playing "out of the chord" with three fingers, and playing these scale runs with two (all while keeping my idle thumb as relaxed as possible).  Okay, I don't have a lot of history or facility with this yet, but it sure felt logical.

And the same thing happened.

This is fascinating.  It reminded me of something Tony Geballe once told me, when we were discussing playing without looking at your hands.  "You know where you want your hands to go, so just put them there."  Maybe that's what's happening here.  I do know what I want to hear, and where the notes are, so maybe at some level I'm just enlisting the attention of my fingers subconsciously.  That would make me very, very happy.

The irony is that this will probably impel me to do more drills, not less.  I'm not one of those who thinks that technique will somehow limit the creative impulse;  rather, the more I can learn the more I can get my conscious brain out of the way, so that I can play what the muse wants without having to think about it.  It frees me up to listen.  :-)

What about CGDABE?

After playing with the DGAD concept for a bit now, the thought suddenly occurred to me:  why not CGDABE for a tuning?  Some interesting attributes, compared with the CGDGAD option I've been considering as a general-purpose tuning:

• Six individual tones, as opposed to four.
• A true four-string group (6543) in all fifths.
• Fifths-based scales available on five strings, simply skipping the second string to do it.

It retains all the advantages of the DGAD relationship that matter to me, and the partial-capo options would seem to offer a great deal of flexibility with these tones, while retaining the ability to play up-the-neck with consistent available intervals.

Interesting thought.  I may string up the SoloEtte that way, and see what happens.