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Drop tune - why is it looked down on?
- Thread starter EatADeadGoat
- Start date
I think that you greatly overestimate the extent to which the "jazz community" cares about how you tune.
Yeah, so to answer the OP... It's because the Taliban-like militant status quo members of the jazz community frown upon it.
You're really not making a very compelling case for the merits of drop-tuning with posts like these. In fact, to the contrary, these posts validate many of the criticisms of drop-tuning that have been expressed in this thread.
Exactly, nobody really cares, but if you want opinions you WILL get them. So don't get your panties in a wad if they don't agree with you.
And he's also spouting off this "jazz" thing; yet i'm sure we're not all jazz cats ;
I think this has already been covered in this threar, but I felt I should chime in. I was in a death metal band where the guitar player tuned to drop B. I was playing a 5 string and thought I would be able to do the songs in standard. Uh uh. Some of the riff structures were so complicated that it was difficult to pull them off. Also I utilize some chords in the lower register and trying to do those chords in standard when he was in dropped didn't work out too well. What I ended up doing was tuning the 5 string to (low to high) G#,B,F#,B,E so that way I could get some lower notes out of it and it worked perfectly for me. The only reason I didn't tune the B string to F# is because it sounded like crap any lower than that. Then a year a late he decided to switch to B standard and all that was thrown out the window.
Yup. He was trying to sell a product, not change the world - and he saw the potential to sell to both upright players AND guitarists.
Heck, the J bass was made with a narrow neck specifically to attract guitar players (or so I recall reading, many years ago).
That all said - it doesn't mean that the presence of a pick guard means that playing with a pick is "correct" - How many dudes removed the pick guard from their J-basses? I know that I did...
Yes, that's what they are - Taliban militant type guys. Everyone knows that about "Jazz guys"....
One thing that Jazz players do not do is agonize over what other folks think of the sub-sub-sub genre of what they play. Something about years of training gives them the confidence to play what they like without really caring what other folks think...
Just as it doesn't mean playing with a pick in "incorrect" just because you say so.
That's pretty funny about removing the pickguard from your bass. Kinda like how the bikers would turn their Harley patches upside down to signify they hated the AMF buyout.
okcrum
in your chest
Long before metal or this particular little Holy War about drop tuning came along, there was this:
Ron Carter was using one in the 1960s. So were Richard Davis and others. You can set these up with multiple stops, not just E as pictured, for quick change to any drop tuning you want.
EDIT: ...and the classical players were using them long before the 60s.
Just as it doesn't mean playing with a pick in "incorrect" just because you say so.
That's pretty funny about removing the pickguard from your bass. Kinda like how the bikers would turn their Harley patches upside down to signify they hated the AMF buyout.
OR... It was because we liked the look of the wood more than a useless piece of plastic.
Well, the thread did *not* start out with any statement about genre, just tuning - but it was clearly implied that this was going to be yet another "I'm a metal guy that folks look down on! Why??? WHY!?!?!?" - - which seems just plain silly to me. If you like to pay "metal", then good for you - why would you possibly care what anyone else thinks of how you tune your bass?
I don't know why so many "metal" folks are so insecure. I have suspicions, but they are just that and nothing more.
I've actually only heard it the other way around, people who play in drop give standard tuning players crap because "real men play in drop." However I can see it going the other way, it's all up to personal preference in the end though.
Long before metal or this particular little Holy War about drop tuning came along, there was this:
Ron Carter was using one in the 1960s. So were Richard Davis and others. You can set these up with multiple stops, not just E as pictured, for quick change to any drop tuning you want.
THAT is cool! So, it appears they had this discussion way back when and went with it without all the arguing we do today?
