does anyone know of any indian or eastern guitar tunings that i could use. please post them on this thread
I got one for ya: s-h-u-t-u-p In Indian music they don't use guitars, they use sitars and other sitar-like instruments. If you're looking for a tuning that will make your guitar sound like a sitar, there isn't one.
jesus, calm down and dont be so bitchy, a simple i dont think there is a tuning like that would be fine. ps: bitch
i forgot to mention this in my last post but davey graham has been taking the tones of eastern instruments like the sitar and so on and making guitar tunings out of them since the sixties, he invented dadgad tuning to sound eastern. dont be so closed minded, i just wanted tuning like that, one that could replicate the sound of eastern instruments and i know in india and such they dont use guitars. ps:you are an idiot
Tunings aren't necessarily going to give your guitar that eastern sound. I think what you're looking for is scales. I'd check out http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/guitar_scales.php. There's a wide variety of scales, so I'm sure there are a few to fit your needs.
Radiation's got it. It's all about the scales. Try playing around with pentatonic scales. Javanese Gamelan music is pretty much all pentatonic. Can't get more "eastern" than that.
You're both idiots for getting at eachother, leave it already. Ok. Though, yes, sound engineers have pioneered sitar-like tones they haven't managed to get Indian scales (or Ragas, or Raags [except that a Raga isn't actually a scale as such, it's more of a structure to improvise around, and it's also a song, it's a bit complicated]). The reason is that the Indian systems (and there are many - the sitar comes from North Indian Classical Music and that's only one tradition, it's just the most well known one because it's the one Ravvi Shankar comes from) don't use semitones like we do. If you divide up a scale into frequencies of sound (e.g. middle A=440KHz [I think]), lets simplify it and simply say 1 to 12. If a standard tuning is 5, 10, 3, 8, 11, 5 and say, drop-D is 3, 10, 3, 8, 11, 5 etc etc then an Indian tuning may look something like this: 6.754, 2.456, 11.999, 3.6784, 8.868, 3.674 etc That was completely hypothetical but still, you get my jist. The closest thing I've heard someone from the Western musical tradition say is "they use quarternotes" but it's not really true, they use a completely different set of frequencies and microtones, you really would have to get a sitar to mimic it. My best advice to you is listen to some Indian Classical music and then muck around with it yourself, playing by ear what sounds as close to an oriental feeling scale yourself. Also, the western musical tradition is very unusual in having 8 notes in your average scale, almost all traditions use pentatonic scales of some description. For example, you can get a really chinese feeling scale by playing a minor pentatonic but using (what would usually be) the dominant as the root. Anyways - good luck Sebbi
Odd tunings are usually for bluesmen and jazzcats. Using scales in standard or cross spanish tuning will give you some neat sounds tho, and thats excellent advice. For sitar scales, those notes just really arent on the fretboard in the usual way western players think of them. Basically, you can play your sitar like a guitar easier than playing your guitar like a sitar - but even thats a very loose interpretation! It comes down to the fact that there are different sharps and flats depending on the scales of the riffs you are playing. Take into consideration that sitar frets move, and are set in different spots for different songs/scales/ragas, and its hard to keep up with a sitar player when you are on guitar. I will say that most sitars are tuned to C, at least most of the ones Ive run across are! Me, I got a sitar and studied on it for ten years plus. It gave me an idea of how to use a guitar to mimic a couple of sounds it makes, but its far from the real thing. Sitar is the most challenging instrument to play properly Ive ever encountered - and tuning is a beast. I would rather restring a piano than a sitar! But the sound is beautiful, and the classical and carnatic music of India is mindblowing. And dont get me started on time signatures! Those numbers are crazy to us westerners! hehehe
That first tuning is the tuning that Jimmy Page uses for White Summer correct? That's a cool tuning, hehe. Anyway, If you know your Minor Scales, then I always thought that if you used the Harmonic Minor scale in a certain way (Which is that you sharp the 7th note in the scale by a half-a-step/one fret) then you can kind of get an Indian sound in a relatively simple way, though it's still not a particular sitar sound, it does kind of have a tone like their music. What I would do is play the 5th note in a certain rhythm, which is hard to describe easily with text...One way to describe it is that it'd be similar to the rhythm of the Tambourine in The Doors song The End. You could play around with it too if you already understand this, but I find at least hovering around the 5th(Must be Major too) keeps it Indian sounding. And then over that you can do some improve with the Harmonic Minor scale. I guess this requires a little knowledge of Music Theory to understand what I'm saying. But I could maybe put it simpler if you need it (though much longer...).
