A Quote by Lee Ranaldo

When I first learned guitar - when I was 14 or 15 - I had an older cousin who showed me some stuff. And he was into all these tunings. He was showing me tunings that people like David Crosby or Neil Young used - like dropped D and open D tunings.
I enjoy having some boundaries to work within. That's why I generally don't like alternate tunings and stuff like that. I like the boundaries of regular tunings.
I got into alternative rock in the early 80s, bands like Husker Du and The Replacements. Bob Mould's playing was a huge influence. It was very heavy with a lot of open tunings, which was great because I played in trios, so I used open tunings to get a fuller sound.
When you're playing guitar, it's the tiny little nuances that make the difference. For me, obviously, tunings is a huge one.
My favorite thing about guitar, and the thing that always drew me to it when I was first learning to play it, was those moments when you think you know what it might sound like, but you don't, and then you hit it, and it's a total surprise. You hear it with really fresh ears. Alternate tunings, for me, they give that back.
I was never a fan of open tunings, because some people will do that and fumble around. But that's not my jam.
I was pillaging a lot of music that had nothing to do with guitar playing, using a lot of strange tunings and voicings and chord structures that aren't really that natural to the guitar; I ended up developing a harmonic palette that's not particularly natural to the guitar because I was always trying to make my guitar sound like something else.
I've got 50 different tunings in the guitar.
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.
Once I got the open tunings for some reason, I began to get the harmonic sophistication that I heard that my musical fountain inside was excited by. Once I got some interesting chords to play with, my writing began to come.
Tunings are wonderfully inspiring, and it helps you to write music. If I'm stuck, you know, I change the tuning.
But when I was 12 or 13, I found the acoustic guitar and got into guitar music ultimately, like Black Motorcycle Club, obviously Neil Young, Crosby, Stills and Nash.
When I was a teenager, working towards dropping out of high school to starting to tour with bands, I'd drive around in my VW Bug every morning before school, very stoned listening over and over to Zeppelin. This song got to me because it just seemed mystical. There is something about those Celtic tunings that almost sounds Eastern. Somehow it would sweep me up into my own little trance-like state, like Sting with those shamans in the Amazon. But all I had was a bong and a Led Zeppelin cassette.
I'm not into that Keith Richard trip of having all those guitars in different tunings. I never liked the Rolling Stones much anyway.
I use a lot of tunings because I listen to a lot of jazz.
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.
My family was always playing music; I always enjoyed it. My cousin, who is a little older than me, he started playing music, so I wanted to, also. I asked my dad for a guitar, and he got me a banjo, so that was my introduction to playing. I played it like a guitar. I had a few lessons, learned out a few chords, and figured it out right away.
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