Black Hole Sun tuning mystery solved!

[Cut the middle]

I don't care much about black hole sun, but the g3 is stunning!

 

[Koshchei]

The version of this legend that I heard is that they intentionally tuned down a half-step for DLR's voice, but that the original Frankenstrat was not easy to tune properly (or Eddie just didn't care and made everyone tune to him) so most of their songs are in what my teacher likes to call "E#-ish".

If you listen carefully to all of their first album you'll find some songs are a little sharper than E# and some are a little flatter. Apparently whatever the Frankenstrat felt like that day.

Some here are suggesting that they were tuned to 432 but I think that's only true for some of their songs and that it's more of an accident than anything else.

Yeah, funny how that worked. Suddenly Eddie could tune the Frankenstrat properly. A miracle!

I think you mean Eb. While E# does technically exist, good luck sight-reading anything in a scale that uses it. Lotta sharps!

 

[devnulljp]

Drop it into Audacity and fix the tuning so you can play along.

 

[Rip Van Dan]

The version of this legend that I heard is that they intentionally tuned down a half-step for DLR's voice, but that the original Frankenstrat was not easy to tune properly (or Eddie just didn't care and made everyone tune to him) so most of their songs are in what my teacher likes to call "E#-ish".

If you listen carefully to all of their first album you'll find some songs are a little sharper than E# and some are a little flatter. Apparently whatever the Frankenstrat felt like that day.

Some here are suggesting that they were tuned to 432 but I think that's only true for some of their songs and that it's more of an accident than anything else.

Yeah, funny how that worked. Suddenly Eddie could tune the Frankenstrat properly. A miracle!

Yeah, 1/2-step flat is 415Hz, which is the old Baroque standard A tuning. If you look at it that way, there's a HUGE amount of recordings using the Baroque tuning of A and many if not the majority of concerts are performed in Baroque tuning (1/2-step flat). Dang! Never thought of some of that hard rock, metal, and death metal groups as being Baroque groups...

 

[Mike N]

Skipping thru five or so pages of this thread, I suspect that REO Speedwagon may have also used 432hz on some of their albums.

Years ago the cover band I was in, we played Keep Pushin' and while it wasn't in 440 it also wasn't a half step down..... seemed to be somewhere in between. The guitarists and I finally agreed on what position to play it ( which was slightly tuned down) and we went with it.

 

[COYS]

I saw Chris Cornell in concert on his solo acoustic tour, and he mentioned that he invented a tuning for this song and that he thought it might be the only song ever written in that tuning. Just recalling from memory since it was like 10 years ago

 

[SunByrne]

I think you mean Eb. While E# does technically exist, good luck sight-reading anything in a scale that uses it. Lotta sharps!

Yep, completely right, I meant Eb. D’oh.

 

[LBS-bass]

I saw Chris Cornell in concert on his solo acoustic tour, and he mentioned that he invented a tuning for this song and that he thought it might be the only song ever written in that tuning. Just recalling from memory since it was like 10 years ago

Not too unusual. Often this means tuning the guitar to something other than standard; a very common non-standard tuning is DADGAD.

Probably the quirkiest practitioner of this sort of thing is Joni Mitchell, who wrote hundreds of songs in different tunings that she made up for various songs.

 

[COYS]

Not too unusual. Often this means tuning the guitar to something other than standard; a very common non-standard tuning is DADGAD.

Probably the quirkiest practitioner of this sort of thing is Joni Mitchell, who wrote hundreds of songs in different tunings that she made up for various songs.

For sure! I just wanted to add that bit since I heard him say it, that he thought it "might be the only song ever written in that tuning" before he performed it acoustically (these shows were captured on his Songbook album and so there would be an example there to listen to). I think people commonly play it in Drop D but from what I remember that sounds OK until you compare it to the record.