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Drop tune - why is it looked down on?

#502
You know another genre that often uses drop tuning quite frequently is Gospel music. I hate people who associate drop tuning with only metal. I think people who hate on drop tuning need to remember that its a means to an end. I say if that's the sound you need/want, ROCK IT! Just my two cents
 
#504
dj150888 said:
From what I've seen, since the "Nu-metal" (bands like, "Limp Bizkit" for example, in case you weren't aware) thing kicked off, a lot more mainstream metal seems to use drop tuning. That would probably be the sort of thing you've heard.

Hmm, I think I'm starting to realise why I hate drop tuning - my subconsious automatically associates it with bands like Limp Bizkit and that makes me feel a bit ill!
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the funny thing is that limp bizkit actually plays in standard tuning :hiding:
They play downtuned to C# standard.

My guitarist likes drop tuning, but I play in standard. And I have to stay that it is quite annoying.
When I come up with a riff, it gets sometimes really hard for him to play it (and the other way around we get the same troubles).

I have put one of my bass in drop tuning two weaks ago, and it has it's good side. The biggest one is having the octave of your lower strings, what allows some nice tapping part :)
but I still have a soft spot for standard tuning
 
#505
dj150888 said:
What about your Rush, King Crimson and Yes? Have they fallen by the wayside also? If not, I think we've found at least one very strong common ground! :D
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Put it this way, Rush, Crimson, yes, ELP, all have a very special place in my heart. In fact, this thread made me pull out Moving Pictures and blast it in my car all week!


I can say I really don’t listen to prog rock, or any rock, very much at all. The last “rock” band I was in is in my signature line, and I am no longer with them except as a sub.

My thing was that I started very early on with classical and jazz, but discovered metal at around age 12. This was something very new for me! The music was something adults and parents would not like. It was “our” music. I was totally in love with it.

I still was on the margins of classical, though…so around that time I was going to a classical music summer camp in the mountains. There was this cool, older CIT (counselor in training) who was an asian violinist who drove a porsche and had a killer stereo system in his cabin. He was blasting “close to the edge” and commenting on how cool it was. Needless to say I was taken with it! I am thinking “wow, so this is music that is rock, but is also harmonically sophisticated and very different from the two note metal that I thought was so cool”. I was able to tie in and reconcile rock music with the “real” music I had been brought up with!

From then on, I was totally into it and bought every album from crimson, yes, rush, elp that I could get my hands on.

But prog rock was the gateway drug into jazz fusion. Weather report, mahavishnu, chick corea, spyro gyra, Pat Metheny….for the next few years this was all I was into, as I recognized that this was what the prog rockers were somewhat trying to achieve, with minimum training or theory (Bands like “YES” do not really read music or write stuff out).

Then, hearing all the references in these bands to Miles Davis, started checking out his fusion stuff (the birthplace of almost all jazz fusion) and from there backtracked to his acoustic trad jazz albums…and that was it for me, I never looked back.

Quite a journey! Now, metal is only something I might pump in my car prior to going to the gym, to get amped. And prog rock is pure nostalgia for me, and a genre I have a lot of respect for.
 
#509
dj150888 said:
....thats exactly what drop tuning is. If you tune everything down, you're still in standard tuning.

Drop tuning is having an interval of a fifth between your two lowest strings, with the rest of the strings in fourths.
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Oh? I didn't know that there was such a precise definition of "Drop Tuning" - So it's just tuning your E string to D? Not your whole bass to, say B E A D or A D G C?

If I take this to be the case, then I've been playing, when needed, "Drop Tuning" since the mid '80s...
 
#510
BigOldHarry said:
Oh? I didn't know that there was such a precise definition of "Drop Tuning" - So it's just tuning your E string to D? Not your whole bass to, say B E A D or A D G C?

If I take this to be the case, then I've been playing, when needed, "Drop Tuning" since the mid '80s...
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AFAIK, Drop Tuning *is* detuning some, but not all of the strings of a guitar or bass. Those others are other alternate tunings, but not what I would call "drop tuning" (although they are lower). I'm not sure there is a standard definition for a lot of these things, though... Open D would be about the only one I'm sure everyone can agree on!
 
#511
BigOldHarry said:
Oh? I didn't know that there was such a precise definition of "Drop Tuning" - So it's just tuning your E string to D? Not your whole bass to, say B E A D or A D G C?

If I take this to be the case, then I've been playing, when needed, "Drop Tuning" since the mid '80s...
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Yes - Drop tuning is where you drop only the lowest string so that it is a 5th instead of a 4th below the next string.

Drop D would be: DADG
Drop C would be: CGCF

As opposed to

D standard: DGCF

Etc.
 
#514
StayLow said:
Mine was no comment on your post. Just riffing the truth off of Drifta's observation.

On topic, I don't care who drop tunes or why. When I teach I encourage kids not to do it. I don't, never will or had to, and I've played plenty of metal and much heavier music. When I take over for a bassist that drop-tuned, I still refuse and if it came down to it I'd walk away from the gig on that point alone. It often confuses the guitarists and they may whine a bit, but so be it.

I won't carry three axes to a gig with different tunings, or have my ears readjusted after working hard for years to instinct where the notes are.

It's amazing how much time is wasted at some rehearsals.

"That take didn't sound right, are you playing the same note as me? I'm playing an A."

"Actual A, or the note that is now where your A would be in standard tuning?"

"Huh?"

"You've tuned down a whole step, so you're playing a G not an A."

"Well, why don't you just play the 5th fret?"

"You want me to play an A?"

"Yeah, that's what I asked you to do."

"Right, so you want me to play an A against your G?"

"Huh? Just play the same note as me."

"OK, done."

"Why is your hand on the 3rd fret? It's confusing and hard to follow along."

"This is your riff, why are you following my hands?"

"Because it's distracting that you're not playing an A, I can see your hand is in the wrong place! Let me TAB it out for you ..."

:hmm:

Add TABZ and the comedy rivals Spinal Tap.
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This is my biggest problem with capo/drop tuning people. They really don't know what the hell they are really playing. Or my other grip it is when instead of transpose a riff in another key in standart they drop tune to keep the same exact pattern.
 
#517
I don't really like drop tuning, I guess I wouldn't mind drop tuning in standard, or occasionally playing drop-d to cover a song but a lot of times I just transpose with what I have. I think the easiest and most efficient thing would be to play the d and g string and use an octave pedal. I don't know why that confuses people lol.
 
#518
Martin89 said:
I don't really like drop tuning, I guess I wouldn't mind drop tuning in standard, or occasionally playing drop-d to cover a song but a lot of times I just transpose with what I have. I think the easiest and most efficient thing would be to play the d and g string and use an octave pedal. I don't know why that confuses people lol.
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I can't think of anywhere in this thread that someone said that octave pedals were confusing. I could be wrong, but I'm not going to reread this whole thing.

FWIW, I just don't like using octave pedals. They sound very fake to me. I'll just play the note, thanks.
 
#519
Lol not the pedals themselves but I've seen guitarists try to follow my fretboard and don't understand that my 3rd string is the same as their first in drop-d. I got a 5 string recently for lower stuff and like b standard if that counts. I don't actually care for octave pedals but it is stupid easy lol, you don't even have to take your hands off your bass!
 
#520
I find theres a habit when you droptune just the E string to rely on whatever the note of the open string is far too much. Look at tool, they are always droptuned to D (except for 3 songs I believe), and their songs are almost always in D (they make up for it with the rhythms two fold). That said, drop tuning CFA#D# sounds really cool. I find it adds something to the sound that I cant really put my finger on.

Also: Messing around with alternate tunings can be really fun, but then I forget the tuning I was in and lose what I was playing :P. I need to learn to write in clef.
 

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