Re: OT: Tuning guitar in fifths for wider orchestration options

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 9:17 PM, Daryl Shawn <highhorse@mhorse.com> wrote:
> I dunno...if a sax player gets in a rut, do they quickly switch to 
>clarinet?

All wind instruments have completely new fingering for every key. And
the resonating pillar of air behaves totally different if you just
transpose the key a half step up or down. So the risk of getting in a
rut is way smaller than when sticking with the guitar.

>
> Honestly, I don't see a world of possibilities in switching tunings.

My question, when I started this thread, was to find out ways to do
solo looping with guitar and have instant access to a wider range,
i.e. being able to play like with a piano; making deep bases and high
melodies in one go. The Stick is also good for that, but I thought
that maybe you can tune a guitar "wider" to expand the range? But
maybe a fifths based tuning will interfere badly with the ability to
play fluent melody lines?

Another approach would be to have a bass pedal (octavider). I've just
started rehearsing with one to explore it for looping. I'm starting to
get bored with the looper scripts I use for bass - it tunes up the
loop and overdubs, so that the overdub will be bass when the loop is
brought back to normal speed. This technique is based on short bass
punches and can not be used for longer notes, which is what I'd like
to find solution for. My recent "bass pedal patch" uses an expression
pedal: in toe down position it is just the normal octave and in toe up
position it is one octave down. The pedal range crossfades
continuously between the octaves, so at the mid position you have both
octaves. This makes it possible to make bass and higher notes in one
(overdub) go, on any sort of instrument you might play. The downside,
compared to piano and stick, is that you can't play bass and higher
notes at the same time - you have to wait for the next loop round.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se
www.perboysen.com