A Quote by Lee Ranaldo

When we first started, in the early Eighties, we had some crappy guitars - Japanese knockoffs that wouldn't hold standard tuning. Later, we'd shove drumsticks or screwdrivers under strings to scheme new noises, sure. But initially, open tuning was a technique used to make our cheap guitars sound better. It wasn't academic or conceptual.
The result was the same as tuning down the strings by a semitone and using a capo at the first fret. With less tension in the strings, the sound was more mellow and softer; it also allowed me to cover a larger span of the fingerboard. I used this for quite a few years, but eventually I went back to the standard fingerboard.
I think that open tunings are a trap really because it's really hard not to sound like an open tuning when your using one and that gets old as well as what you learn in one open tuning is going to stay there.
I started playing the guitar when I was 14. I'm not superstitious about guitars, but I do need strings to be old because that's part of my sound, and I don't like steel strings.
I also generally play slide guitar in standard tuning, which enables me to switch back and forth between using the slide and fretting notes and chords conventionally without having to relearn the fretboard, as one must do when playing in an open tuning.
Even on guitars I've had misfortunes. I never used to clip the strings on my guitar and then one day I accidentally poked my right eye with the E-string. My eye just wouldn't stop tearing up and I could barely keep it open. The doctor said I didn't do any major damage, but I had to wear a patch for a little while. I still have a tiny red mark on my eyeball from it; I'm still not sure it's the same.
My older sister encouraged me from early on and bought me one of the first guitars I had. She listened to all of the crappy songs that I wrote when I was 8 years old and encouraged me to keep doing it.
There are some good space battles in some of the later series, but that wasn't why you were tuning in every week. You were tuning in every week because Spock was a fascinating character. Because his friendship with Kirk was profound and really unusual.
Never having thought of writing for the guitar, I asked Julian Bream for a chart which would explain what the guitar could do. I managed to write some rather pretty pieces for him, except that the first six notes of the first piece all need to be played on open strings. So when he begins to play the audience will probably think he's tuning the bloody thing up!
I'll always leave the same set of strings on my guitars when I'm recording. If I break one I'll just replace it instead of putting on a whole new set of strings.
As soon as I started writing the first batch, I had a vision. I saw me on stage playing a certain type of music. I want to take these blues melodies over aggressive guitars. I heard the sound I wanted to make. I knew what I wanted to do. It wasn't ever there before.
Ideals are like tuning forks: sound them often to bring your life up to standard pitch.
I'm always trying to evolve my sound. I love the simplicity of my setup. I play Gibson guitars and Marshall amps. So it's kind of like the standard rock sound.
A lot of the time I use slide tuning for rhythm parts. I play a lot of slide in regular tuning as well as open tunings. I'm still mad about slide, there are so many ways of progressing on it.
It would be obvious for me to do conceptual art, and I think I've done it already with smashing bass guitars and whatever - I consider that as conceptual.
There are guitars everywhere around all of our houses. Pianos. Guitars. It's kind of just in our blood. It's in our nature.
The first instrument I had was made in the late '70s. Back then they had basically one tuning. I shifted slightly away from that tuning right away (to what is now called the Baritone Melody Tuning), because I wanted more string overlap between the two sides.The instrument I currently play has an active pickup system, Fret Rails, a fully adjustible bridge, adjustible truss, Flaps adjustible nut. Even with all of these advances, I'm always struck when I play the older instrument how good they were even then. Emmett's always been great at implementing his ideas.
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