Have you Ever Seen The Rain Question

When I want to find a new key for something (usually I can't sing to the original pitch), I generally just slap the capo on and move it up and down until somewhere comfortable before I transpose the chords. No point spending time finding a nice alternative if I can't sing to it :wink:

Often I'll start with a capo at 11, sing it a half-step lower and work downwards, as I have a low vocal range and that's the same (key-wise anyway) as stepping down a fret. Occasionally, if I'm not even in the same ballpark as the original, I'll capo at about the 5th and sing down 7 semi-tones - (5+7=12, so they meet up again at the right note, if you see what I mean).

Another trick if it's too high for me to sing and what I need to play is too tricky on the narrower frets at the 11th, is to transpose down 5 steps temporarily, then use those new chords with the capo at the 5th. That gives me room to transpose downwards with the capo, and again I'll use open chords where possible after using the capo to find a place I like.

Once I have a range of transpositions that I can physically manage, then I'll use my transposition thingy (link) to choose one of those, either the one that I feel most comfortable singing or in the case of that not making much difference the one that has the least 'awkward' chords in it :)

that very complicated for my poor little brain to manage....

I'll go out on a limb here and show my total unknowing knowledge of this subject but ..

Don't you just find what key you sing in and then play in that key ...

Say you sing in C , the chords used would be in the key of C ???

Thats how I understand it ...

But then again I know absolutely nothing

I think pearlthekat is asking more about staying in the same key but just using a different tuning.

As far as that goes though, I don't know a lot about that myself. Something which comes up in a few Coldplay songs (and I'm sure other bands too) is just tuning the two highest strings differently to suit the key, and then leaving those strings open the whole time. Of course that means the chords you'll be playing aren't just plain major or minor chords, but it can still sound very nice. For example, one song is tuned to what is (essentially) EADGGC. Then the chords used are 8-10-10-9-0-0 (which is still C major), 022000 for an Eminor-ish chord, 355400 for G-ish chord (G with a 4th added I think) and a few more too which follow the 'barre chord with two high strings open' pattern. Of course you can come up with whatever chord shapes you want if they sound good. (And if you are familiar with Coldplay, then that song is "A Message". The actual tuning is as above but then everything up a half-step as well, or a capo on fret 1).

After coming up with a new tuning, then you could head over to http://www.jguitar.com , enter your new tuning then use the chord search to get fingerings for the chords you'll be using. Or otherwise go with something like the example above where you don't try to play exactly a Cmajor or Aminor or whatever, but just something similar whilst getting a unique sound from whatever tuning you go with (I think that possibly sounds a lot more complicated than it needed too, but I hope you get the idea)

Anyway, as I said, I don't know much about the whole alternate tuning thing, so I'll just stop my rambling now. Hope that helped a bit though :)

Ahh, I see, that makes sense - sorry PtheK, I was just thinking of keys and nothing more :roll: :wink:

Thanks a lot Simon. I'll try this out when I get some time. And thanks for the link.

Well - I love the song. I sometimes put the "CCR Chronicle" CD on, and play acoustic all the way through. If I'm singing, it's a different kettle of fish - I'll play D, A, Bm and G - suits my voice better.

But if you want to experiment - try it in open G, capo at the 5th fret.

:D :D :D

Vic