It also took a little while to get used to the feeling of the gauge difference between the 5th and 4th strings (going from a. In the end, it’s not that big of a deal-it’s really just open G tuning with an octave change on the 5th string, but it sure felt different. I spent quite a bit of time just learning the notes again, as it was a little confusing to try to play traditional lines and phrases due to the odd tuning. Mixing open strings with octave-above notes played on the 14th and 16th frets sound a lot more miraculous than they are difficult. Jumping from the 5th to 4th string sounded like I was hitting a whammy pedal because of the octave displacement and allowed for gorgeous and slightly confusing-sounding lines to be played.Īnother benefit of this tuning style was the ability to stay in a simple box pattern to create wonderful runs. ![]() Probably the best part of having this unique tuning was that I could use the 5th string to create incredibly wide intervallic leaps that could never be accomplished with this ease in normal tuning. After learning the song in rudimentary form (the idea was not to copy but to get the feel and arrange it for a completely different style) I was off and running. Wow, what a cool sound! Playing in simple block patterns and incorporating open strings immediately revealed the beginnings of how the banjo gets its unique sound and how classic banjo licks could be accomplished. Watching some YouTube footage of the song confirmed that both the guitarist and banjo player were capo’d as well.Ī pleasant surprise came with the first simple strum of the newly tuned guitar. That gave me the standard open-G tuning like a banjo, and since the song was in the key of A, I capo’d the guitar on the 2nd fret. All of the remaining strings stayed tuned the same as normal, except the 1st string was dropped to D. 009 and tuned up to a high G (the same pitch as the 1st string on the 3rd fret). The 6th stayed off, but the 5th was replaced with a. Don’t flinch, no guitars were hurt during this experiment, but a few strings lost their lives! Matching the standard 5-string banjo tuning required pulling the 5th and 6th strings off the guitar altogether. ![]() The best guitar for the job was my ’03 Les Paul R8-big rock tone and a great, solid neck to handle what I was about to ask it to do for me. After some head scratching, what seemed like the best way to accomplish the sound of a banjo on a rock guitar track was not to play banjo licks in standard tuning, but to restring the guitar just like a 5-string banjo, learn the song, and take it from there. The only thing about the assignment was that the original was written as a banjo/acoustic guitar duel, and what they wanted was anything but acoustic … or banjo, even though it was supposed to resemble the original in some way. The guys at Activision asked me to rewrite a metal arrangement of “Dueling Banjos” for Guitar Hero to be released this month as a downloadable song for the game. We feature fully-encrypted "SSL Certified"secure online transactions and take phone orders 10AM to 6PM, 7 days a week.This month I wanted to relay some real-world experience that forced me to think way outside the box for a recent gig. We accepts all major Credit Cards, PayPal, PayPal Credit and Afterpay.
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