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Sunday, May 31, 2020

323. THE BEST WAY TO LEARN THE FRETBOARD OF ANY OPEN (OVERTONES) TUNING.


See alo post 13 for learning the fretboard ofthe guitar

When having many string instruments it is more wise to have different tunings too. Especially if we utilize a digital (midi controller) fretbaord that supports practically any tuning, it is a need to have a unified and efficient way to learn fast the fretboards of any tuning and in particular open (overtone) tunings that sound better and have an umderlying unity in their pattern.

THE BEST WAY TO LEARN THE FRETBOARD IN ANY OPEN TUNING (E.G, OVERTONES TUNINGS OR E.G. THE  TUNING IN THE POST   ) IS BY CONCEIVING THE FRETBOARD AS OF A DIATONIC INSTRUMENT, MARK THE DEFAULT PREFERED DIATONIC SCALE ON THE FRETBOARD, AND LEARN THE 3-NOTE CHORDS NORMAL FORMS (ON 3 CONSECUTIVE STRINGS) IN THIS SCALE AND TUNING.

THEN FIGURE OUT THE BASIC 3 INVERSIONS OF A TRIAD CHORD (EQUIVALENT TO THE DEA-SYSTEM) AND CORRESPOND TO EACH INVERSION D, OR E OR A,  THE MODE OF THE DIATONIC SCALE THAT IT GIVES. 

THEN LEARN THE MINOR CHORDS HARMONIC TRIPLET OF CHORDS AND MAJOR CHORDS HARMONIC TRIPLET OF CHORDS OF THE DIATONIC SCALE WITH ANY CONVENIENT INVERSION ON THE FREBOARD.

I use this method to play all over the fretboard on the next tunings. Because an open tuning is a chord, all the tuning below have almost isomorphic placements of harmonic triads of minor or major chords of the diatonic scale with their 3 inversions around each normal form triad chord of the diatonic scale on the fretboard. We will enlarge with diagrams on it.

I have usually the next tuning on my string instruments

1) Standard guitar tuning and ukulele (Venezolano cuatro) tuning 4-3M-4

2) Cavaco (Brazilian  cuatro)  tuning 4-3M-3m

3) 1st overtones tuning 5-4-3M-3m-4 (as in post 191 and 301) for 6 strings, or less

4) Troll or Black mountain or Calico open tuning 5-4-3M on 4 (courses) strings instruments (see post 301)

5) Inverted  ukulele tuning   5-6m-5 on 4 (courses) strings instruments as in post 308

6) 5th overtones open tuning 4-3M-3m-4-5 as in post 301, for 6 strings or less
For less than 6 strings we keep the higher part of the tuning so as to have the interval of 5th at the two highest notes E.g. for 4 strings it would be 3m-4-5

7) 6th overtones tuning 5-4-3M-4-5 as in post 301, for 6 strings or less. It is a balanced tuning  as far as major-minor triads is concerned and it has also the very interesting inverse  4-5-6m-5-4 . 

8) The alternating minor-major 3rds of harmonic guitra tuning 3m-3M-3m as in post 164 for 6 strings or less and in particularthe panduri tuning 3M-3m for 3-course string instruments 

We enlrage more on this.