Actually, in the most recent grammy awards, the first "Hawaiian Music" grammy went to "Slack Key Guitar, Vol 2" which an album consisting totally of what most call "drop tuning". In Hawai'i, we call it "slack key" or "ki ho'alu".
Slack key playing is an art in itself, and tunings can be quite personal, often identified with a particular artist or location, or time. Many of the standard ones have names, such as "plantation" (G tuning), "Wahine", etc. Aside from how easily the playing of full-sounding chords comes out and the ability to have droning strings under the melody, it has the advantage that the sound is more "in tune" in a way, because the guitar is actually tuned to a particular key and is NOT even-tempered. Almost everyone who learns guitar here learns some slack (drop) tuning. At 10:54 AM 3/5/2005 -0500, John Howell wrote: >At 9:53 PM +0000 3/4/05, Ken Moore wrote: >>In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Roger Satorra >>writes: >>>You're talking about a scordatura. <snip> > >Six-string or five-string electric basses are now common in pop >music, and I wonder how they are tuned. And John Denver is alleged >to have used a scordatura tuning for his guitar, allowing him to play >figurations that would have been unplayable in normal guitar tuning. > >John > > >-- >John & Susie Howell >Virginia Tech Department of Music >Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 >Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 >(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) >http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html >_______________________________________________ >Finale mailing list >[email protected] >http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > > --------------------------------- Bruce K. H. Kau [EMAIL PROTECTED] 'Aina Haina, Honolulu, Hawai'i "Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning ..." _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
