Estimated reading time 3 minutes
Table of Contents
Keith Richards and Tuning Like a Rock Star
Do you want to get a good guitar sound? Do you want your rig to sound like a rock star’s? Most guitarists think their sound comes from their guitar, strings, effects, and amp settings. They all affect the sound, but how the guitar gets tuned remains an important aspect of the instrument’s sound that gets overlooked. If you want to sound like a rock star, you need to tune like a rock star.
The Honky Tonk Women video at the end of the post will give a classic Stones song that you can play in this tuning.
This article uses technical musical terms. For definitions, see the Glossary at the end of the post.
5-String Technique Video
1st Video:
- Keith Richards tunes the “Five-String Technique” alternate guitar tuning without holding down any frets.
- This makes the guitar sound fantastic, because the chords sound more in tune when frets are not used during the tuning process.
- However, Richards’ method of tuning is difficult. At the end of the article, I will show you an easier way to tune like a rock star.
- In the YouTube video, Keith Richards | Guitar Moves Interview, Richards shows how he tunes his version of the five-string open G tuning (time stamp: 26:00 – 27:55). Tuning using frets forces the guitar into equal temperament when a guitarist compares unison notes between a fretted note and an open string.
- However, Richards frets no notes when tuning open G. This frees the chords of the vague harmony that results when tuning to equal temperament.
2nd Video:
In a different video, Ask Keith Richards – Open G Tuning, he comments:
Tuning is a strange thing. It can take you into musical areas that are not supposed to exist. It’s one of the adventures, is playing around in different tunings… I found you can get the most amazing chords that you cannot get in a regular tuning.
The regular tuning Richards talks about is also called standard tuning. When tuning standard tuning using frets, it (mostly) conforms to equal temperament.
Ask Keith Richards Video
The Authentic Sound of Blues and Tuning Like a Rock Star
Playing a guitar tuned outside of equal temperament allows you to access the authentic sounding chords of country blues, electric blues, and classic rock guitar.
In other words, you can tune like a rock star… or a blues star. However, fret-tuned-standard-tuning (equal temperament) is a better choice for chromatic styles like jazz or 21st century classical.
Tune Like a Rock Star: The Easy Version
- Many guitarists might find tuning without frets or harmonics too scary to even attempt. This is why we will use harmonics to tune like a rock star. It makes it much easier to tune open G. Yet, it still yields very similar results to Richard’s tuning.
- If you have a hard time tuning the harmonics in measure 4, try adding distortion. Once you have mastered tuning open G with harmonics, you can try it Richards’ way.
- The notes for the full six-string open G tuning from the bottom (fattest) string to the top (thinnest) string are: D G D G B D. This makes a G major chord. The Tab below shows how to tune open G. It uses both harmonics (the notes with diamonds above the fret numbers) and open strings.
Mobile users: for best results reading the music, tilt your screen 90o to the right.
Honky Tonk Women Video
Concluding Thoughts on Tuning Like a Rock Star
The Honky Tonk Women video above gives you a good idea of what type of music is effective in this tuning.
- For more on retuning guitars and keyboards, see the Intonation post.
- The next post describes the process of tuning open G in more depth so you can learn how to tune like a rock star in more detail.
- Click here for a video teaching the song “Brown Sugar.”
Have fun!
Related Content
- Play Like a Rock Star with Open G Tuning
- Sound Like a Rock Star with Open G Tuning
- Jam Like a Rock Star with Open E Tuning
- Learn How to Get a Killer Sound for Your Band
- How to Tune the Classic Rock Open G Sound Using Harmonics
- How to Tune the Blues Rock Open D Sound Using Harmonics
- Tune Your Ukulele Like a Hawaiian
- Intonation and Supplemented Equal Temperament
- How to Play and Tune Parlor Guitar Style
- How to Use an Extremely Accurate Guitar Strobe Tuner to Make Your Guitar Sound Awesome
© 2020 Geoffrey Keith
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