Tuning to C-standard?

[Greenman72]

Most songs are tuned to E-standard. (EADG)
(That may not be the right wording, but you know what I mean.)

Many are tuned to E-flat (or D#) standard.
Some are tuned to D-standard.
Some are tuned to C# standard.
And some are tuned to BEAD.
I've even seen A# standard, I think.

But I've never seen anything that calls for C standard.

Why not?

 

[Aric Bjorn]

Check out Queens Of The Stone Age

for example:

 

[Element Zero]

Lots of metal bands have tuned to C for decades.

 

[Elusive1]

Most songs are tuned to E-standard. (EADG)
(That may not be the right wording, but you know what I mean.)

Many are tuned to E-flat (or D#) standard.
Some are tuned to D-standard.
Some are tuned to C# standard.
And some are tuned to BEAD.
I've even seen A# standard, I think.

But I've never seen anything that calls for C standard.

Why not?

I don't really know myself, although I suspect it might be to keep all four notes consistent between natural and unnatural keys.

Assuming you're keeping your instrument tuned in fourths, tuning to E, D or B gives you all natural keys (E-A-D-G, D-G-C-F and B-E-A-D), and tuning to Eb gives you all unnatural keys (Eb-Ab-Db-Gb). No issues there.

However, once you tune to C, you get a slightly weird mix of natural and unnatural keys (C-F-Bb-Eb), which might not be an issue for professionals but might be a little confusing for those who aren't as well-versed in music theory, and tuning to C#/Db can be even more confusing - yes, there are times where you can get "C-flat" and "F-flat" (C#-F#-B-E / Db-Gb-Cb-Fb).

Ultimately, tuning is more a matter of convenience and purely up to one's personal preference. You do what works for you.

 

[NKBassman]

But I've never seen anything that calls for C standard.

Why not?

I guess cuz you haven't looked hard enough?

 

[Sharko]

I hear music in C standard every day

 

[SharpCat]

To put maybe some more nuance into it, songs are in keys, and the bass can be tuned to make playing in that key easier.

As far as what note ends up on a given string when it's played open, that's not really interesting unless you're looking for the open-string sound, which isn't common on the upper strings. So C-F-Bb-Eb doesn't seem like a problem to me.

Songs in the key of C are all over. Stereotypically, they tend to be bright and bouncy, I haven't actually looked, but I bet most little kids songs are in C.

 

[monsterthompson]

I guess cuz you haven't looked hard enough?

Google pulled a bunch, assuming the AI isn’t hallucinating. These seem plausible.

 

[NKBassman]

I think In Flames tune to B now, but yeah a lot of their earlier stuff was in C or C#.

 

[NKBassman]

Plenty of blues and slide artists tune to Open C as well. Ariel Posen and Joey Landreth, to name two I'm immediately familiar with.

 

[MCS4]

Yep, C Standard is common enough in the metal scene. Drop C as well.

 

[RGerhart]

Drop C is pretty standard for metal genres. Periphery uses it quite a bit.

Try it out and let us know.

 

[MrAB4003]

Listen to Sleep if you want C Standard:

 

[ceetee]

To sum it up, it's pretty common, mainly a feature metal shares with little kids's songs.

I'll show myself out.

 

[NKBassman]

Google pulled a bunch, assuming the AI isn’t hallucinating. These seem plausible.
View attachment 7446552

lol that it pulled Dethklok

 

[Riff Ranger]

About 20 years ago it seemed like almost every heavy band tuned to C-Standard (far from accurate; it just seemed like it to me), and it remains incredibly common.

You had a few prominent heavy bands way out in front, most notoriously Black Sabbath in Db/C#-Standard in the early 1970s, but once grunge made Drop-D huge in the early ‘90s, the race to the bottom seemed to be on for everyone remotely heavy. Predictably, some treated it like a contest, but it seemed like many had reached an unspoken truce at C-Standard in the mid-‘00s. Queens of the Stone Age was mentioned, System of a Down was huge, and Deftones’ guitarist still played a six-string on White Pony, I think for reasons @Elusive1 already stated elegantly, C-Standard always struck me as a weird place to stop; but for reasons @SharpCat already stated elegantly, a lot of people like the key of C and C-Standard tuning facilitates playing in that key. I don’t recall what broke the “truce” when, but predictably people started one-up-ing (or one-down-ing?) each other again in recent years.

I settled on B-standard for the most part because big chords on the guitar don’t quite turn to mud at that point, and I like where the open strings land. The only unnatural open string is the Gb/F# on my guitars and basses vi, but I’ve always liked that key.

 

[urkel3000]

I keep my p bass with .136 TI flats in C because they are too floppy for b

 

[FronTowardEnemy]

Deftones.

I had to tune to C# and C

 

[beaglesandbass]

It’s common in the metal community. Also I would (maybe wrongly) assume that a lot of the metal and hard rock bands prefer drop tuning rather than a standard.

 

[MrAB4003]

It’s common in the metal community. Also I would (maybe wrongly) assume that a lot of the metal and hard rock bands prefer drop tuning rather than a standard.

It depends on the type of metal being played.

My original songs are traditional heavy metal and I have tuned down to D Standard (on bass, piccolo bass, and guitar) for parts of my second album, all of my third album, and all of my upcoming fourth album. That tuning works well for me because I have enough lower notes, nice open strings (D1 and G1), and it makes me more creative when writing songs.

Lots of traditional heavy metal and thrash bands tune to standard or Eb Standard. But doom metal bands (like Sleep) will tune to C Standard or even lower.