I'm just curious as to the origins of these methods from astudent point of view..thanks regular tuning is more for chords and is based on European
music. open tunings is more for modal style,African, Asian etc,you can tune those six strings to any thing u want but it`s usually tuned to a chord.it`s great for slide or finger picking styles where U can use a lot of open strings. some blues guitarits like albert king and a. collins used open tuning.
capos are used to change your key also ,open strings to
use... better u ask them only Open tunings are more useful for 'bottleneck' or 'slide' styles of playing. Originally this was (supposedly) the guitarist wearing the neck broken off a bottle on his pinky and using it to slide up and down the high e-string. Today they make metal tubes to use for that, and you're less likely to cut yourself. It can be seen as a variation of steel guitar or Hawaiian guitar.
Capos, of course, just make it easier to play in a different key without having to play bar chords all day long. Blues is a 'folk' style, old blues players were not exactly virtuosos, as you can see from the simplicity of the music. Folk singers use them too. I can only speak for my self
I tune all my strings down one full step , because my vocal range is to low to sing in the higher notes in the open position.
And Blues sounds better in Trimatic "D"
and the reason some musicians use a capo is because they ha vent developed the ability to play the harder Bar Chords
For the open tunings it is mostly for slide bar and It makes it easier for musicians to play chords . In stead of using all four fingers they only need to use two or three fingers
in other words for ease of playing , and It is easier to tune your instrument to your vocal range then it is to increase it up or down Although open tunings are used for slide, they are used for other styles of blues guitar as well. Slide guitar uses many/all of the strings, not just the high E.
Open tunings provide different voicings, and the ability to play a chord (depending on the tuning) without fretting any strings.
Although capos are sometimes used merely to transpose a piece into a different key, it is far from a crutch or a cheater, as some people call it (particularly Jazz musicians).
Barre chords do not allow for open strings, something essential to most styles of american folk music (country, folk, blues, rock & roll, etc.)
The use of a capo allows the guitarist to transpose a song AND still have the ringing of open strings. |
