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New Memberships Opening Soon
GREAT NEWS
Coming Soon will be our Interactive Lesson Guides on Alternate Tunings for Fingerstyle Acoustic Guitars.
What we are offering is different from others in regards to we will only focus on one thing, Alternate Tunings.
These lessons will include tablature, PDF printouts, Instructional Videos and more.
Because of our personal and business relationships, as a Elite Member, you will have the opportunity to belong to
a Membership of Fingerstyle Guitarists that are World known Fingerstyle Guitarists, actually working one-on-
one with you video video conferencing.
New tunings inspire new musical thoughts. Alternate tunings let you play voicings and slide between chord
forms that would normally be impossible. They give access to nonstandard open strings. Playing familiar fingerings
on an unfamiliar fretboard is exciting - you never know exactly what to expect. And working out familiar riffs on an
unfamiliar fretboard often suggests new sound patterns and variations.
That's one thing Lumina is about and wants to help you explore alternative ways of making music.
Why is the standard guitar tuning standard? Where did this strange combination of a major 3rd and four perfect
4ths come from? There is a bit of history (view the guitar as a descendant of the lute), a bit of technology (strings
which are too high and thin tend to break, those which are too low tend to be too soft), and a bit of chance.
Nevertheless, a standard is a standard, and nearly everyone who plays knows EBGDAE. It’s only a few folk
musicians who use different tunings, and they probably do it because they can’t play well enough, right?
Er, well, maybe Leo Kottke knows what he’s doing, and maybe Wm. Ackerman and Michael Hedges are good, and
maybe Adrian Belew is talented... But playing in alternate tunings is impossible on stage, retuning is a nightmare...
strings break, wiggle and bend out of tune, necks warp. And the alternative - carrying around five special guitars
for five special tuning tunes - is a hassle.
Back to EBGDAE.
But all these "practical" reasons pale compared to psychological inertia. "I've spent years mastering one tuning,
why should I try others?" Because there are musical worlds waiting to be exploited. Once you have retuned and
explored a single alternate tuning, you'll be hooked by the unexpected fingerings, the easy drone strings,
the "new" open chords. New tunings are a way to recapture the wonder you experienced when first finding your
way around the fretboard - but now you can become proficient in a matter of days rather than years!
And the ‘practical’ reasons are becoming less convincing with the introduction of MIDI guitar controllers, which do
much more than just allow guitarists to play synthesizers. With the flick of a button you can change the tuning of all
six strings; no messy out of tune strings, no broken strings, no extra guitars. And the alternate tunings themselves
are no longer confined.
| excerpts from Alternate Tuning Guide by William Sethares |
| Technical Support via Twiter |