Drop D

I would stay away from it unless you need to get your strings lower. I find that drop tuning allows you to become lazy. I know this first hand, I used to play Drop C exclusivly on electric. If you look in the lessons, I wrote the lesson for drop C, back like 4 years ago when I was infatuated with drop tunings. To me, drop tuning doesn't help you much.

Also, a better place for this would have been the alternate tunings forum ;)

http://forums.guitarnoise.com/viewtopic.php?t=24315&highlight=drop

There are some good ideas in there. Drop D may make you lazy in terms of power chords, but it is a great tuning. You don't just need to use it for metal songs.

Drop D may make you lazy in terms of power chords, but it is a great tuning. You don't just need to use it for metal songs.Quite true. For a good example of this, see David Hodge's lesson on Neil Young's "Harvest Moon." https://www.guitarnoise.com/article.php?id=488

I think the whole "drop tunings are bad" or "drop tunings are lazy" thing is kinda silly. As my signature says, I believe in playing better, not harder. So to make things more difficult for no reason makes no sense. Whether you play F5 like:

E|---|
B|---|
G|---|
D|-3-|
A|-3-|
E|-1-|


or

E|---|
B|---|
G|---|
D|-3-|
A|-3-|
D|-3-|


Makes no difference to your ears or the ears of your listeners. I'll don't quite understand why people make things harder than they have to be. Take every advantage you can get! If it's easier to use standard tuning, do it. If it's easier on a drop tuning, do it. Only a small handful of people will think it's bad because it's not hard to play, but you aren't out to please them.

I kinda agree with everything that's been written so far.....

If you do start using drop D tuning a lot, watch out, 'cos you might lose some of the strength in your fingers for forming powerchords (I have had my electric in Dropped D for over a year now, and even though I can play barre's just fine on my acoustic, it's hard to do on my electric. Strange, eh?)

Anyway, there are some good points to dropped D, one of which was pointed out by OWA above;

It makes life EASIER! Not that I'm lazy, but like she said, if it's easier then why not do it? Plus, there are lots of songs which require very fast chord changes, and if you ain't that quick, this tuning can be a big bonus to your playing.

There are quite a few songs (the ones I know of are mostly metal/rock/alternative style) which you HAVE to play in Dropped D 'cos the require the use of the chord 000xxx (that us, the 3 bass string open, in this case DAD) which cannot be achieved in standard tuning.

Personally, I love the deep sound that comes from a low D, and you can play almost any song, whether it is written for dropped D of standard - win win!

I have found a few drawbacks though:

It makes it harder to form open chords.
Any solo work on the dropped string needs to be adjusted accordingly.
Depending on how hard you press the low D string can REALLY vary the sound you get, so watch out!
Might just be me, but a dropped D string tends to go out of tune quicker, probably 'cos it's slacker than normal?

Anyway, gone on for a bit now lol

Just experiment with it, play around with some stuff you already know, try some new songs, see what you like.

Pete :)

i think a lot of blues is played with Drop D.

Also, a better place for this would have been the alternate tunings forum

Haha sorry about that, I shoulda looked first

I would stay away from it unless you need to get your strings lower. I find that drop tuning allows you to become lazy. I know this first hand, I used to play Drop C exclusivly on electric. If you look in the lessons, I wrote the lesson for drop C, back like 4 years ago when I was infatuated with drop tunings. To me, drop tuning doesn't help you much.

Also, a better place for this would have been the alternate tunings forum ;)

Does that make you the guitarist formerly known as "Tucker"? If so I wasn't aware and glad your still around 8) if not sorry for the mistaken identity.

I would stay away from it unless you need to get your strings lower. I find that drop tuning allows you to become lazy. I know this first hand, I used to play Drop C exclusivly on electric. If you look in the lessons, I wrote the lesson for drop C, back like 4 years ago when I was infatuated with drop tunings. To me, drop tuning doesn't help you much.

Also, a better place for this would have been the alternate tunings forum ;)

Does that make you the guitarist formerly known as "Tucker"? If so I wasn't aware and glad your still around 8) if not sorry for the mistaken identity.

Wow I didn't realize you were Tucker. Is it true? Another victim of the server crash in april of 2004 I guess.

Personally I only ever use Drop D if a particular song requires it. I wouldn't ever tune to it for noodling around, experimenting, or writing music. I guess I'm just happy with the standard tuning at this point in my playing life. Having said that, I probably know around 5-10 songs in Drop D now, compared to 1 or 2 a year ago.

i think a lot of blues is played with Drop D.A lot of blues is played in Open D, and even more in Open G. A step further in the same direction, you've got not only a power chord but an entire major chord across six strings at each fret.
8)