P4 tuning - slide guitar

DavidRees

anyone here experimented with playing slide guitar in a group/ensemble situation using P4 tuning - EADGCF? or indeed know of anyone who has given this a try? 

ToneControl

DavidRees said:

anyone here experimented with playing slide guitar in a group/ensemble situation using P4 tuning - EADGCF? or indeed know of anyone who has given this a try? 

Can I ask what's your motivation in choose that tuning?

Do you mean lap steel, or mixing in fretted notes too?

DavidRees

Hi ToneControl, the idea would be contributing single notes or diads to whatever else was going on musically - not having a primary responsibility for harmony or rhythm, perhaps best provided by a piano, and focusing on the top 3 strings using scalar patterns already known from the bottom four where the octave is only two frets away and by utilising a root with a fourth above or a fifth below providing harmonic support neither major nor minor - similarly skip a string and you've got a root and a flat 7th. If playing with a pianist, you know how that love to play as many notes as possible, it might provide an interesting musical experiment ...

ToneControl

Would you mostly be playing notes using a slide?

With lap style - It's very rare to use any kind of neutral tuning

As you say, you could just pick out the odd note, or pair

Nevertheless, I'd say if you are using lap steel, it might be easier to use something like C6 tuning, and use a slide capo to match the key. A lot of the more attractive intervals are possible with such a tuning, which has smaller intervals between the strings

I've watched my mate, who is a semi-pro player, and a pro player playing up close (3 feet away), and as far as I can see it can get harder using a tuning that works against the key in use

DavidRees

Hi ToneControl, the idea would be to only play notes with the slide in the upright position - I'm a fairly experienced slide player and have played the standard repertoire in the usual open tunings as well as standard. this would be a new musical experiment using a slightly different technique to drive a new approach which as far as I can see no-one has tried before. but as you imply there may be very good reasons for that - I still might give it a go if I can find the right piano player ...

ToneControl

I think it will work with pieces you are arranging in advance, but will probably stop you being able to improvise

ToneControl

There is another variable you might like to consider:
This gadget lets you temporarily change the tuning of 2 strings. I have one fitted to the same cheap lap steel as this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaK44EX7fkw

ToneControl

you can fit them to teles too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwEzsoqtSbg

ToneControl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-iVp-lZFCA

you don't have to do the country-style licks btw!

DavidRees

Hi ToneControl, I think a number of long time P4 players such as Ant Law, Tom Quayle, Deirdre Cartright seem to think it enhances the ability to improvise giving a better symmetric structure to the fretboard time will tell I guess - I might start by purchasing some CDs of piano music and just jamming along to see whether my musical vision has any legs at all but thank you for your comments ...

ToneControl

DavidRees said:

Hi ToneControl, I think a number of long time P4 players such as Ant Law, Tom Quayle, Deirdre Cartright seem to think it enhances the ability to improvise giving a better symmetric structure to the fretboard time will tell I guess - I might start by purchasing some CDs of piano music and just jamming along to see whether my musical vision has any legs at all but thank you for your comments ...

I think if you switched over to P4 for a large proportion of the time, you could learn to improvise in it properly. What I was meaning is that the popular open tunings have evolved by natural selection to have all the notes that are most needed in arpeggios right next to each other.
If you put enough time in to P4 you will be able to do less cliched improvisations, so I think it is worth the effort.

Personally I usually use the most popular slide tunings

Whereas I have done weird stuff for fretted instruments, e.g. tuning a 29 inch acoustic in 5ths, playing a 7 string bass as an extended range guitar, etc.  I'd need to put in a lot more time in to be able to use a slide tuning that is not built around a specific key

GuyBoden

DavidRees said:

Hi ToneControl, I think a number of long time P4 players such as Ant Law, Tom Quayle, Deirdre Cartright seem to think it enhances the ability to improvise giving a better symmetric structure to the fretboard time will tell I guess - I might start by purchasing some CDs of piano music and just jamming along to see whether my musical vision has any legs at all but thank you for your comments ...

I've played in P4 tuning for over 10 years, but I still do a bit of standard tuning. Playing some chords in P4 that are easy in standard are virtually impossible. Your standard tuning easy peasy rock riffs on the high strings, can't be played easily either in P4. The P4 facebook group has a lot of good info, Tom Quayle's P4 teacher from Leeds regularly posts in the group too.

Facebook Tuning in fourths group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/183968224067

DavidRees

Thanks Guy ...