Soundgarden tuning issues

[ihatemickjagger]

My sister's ex boyfriend picked up a nice Best of Soundgarden guitar tablature book for my birthday, and i'm loving it. I thought i had "My Wave" figured out all from ear in standard tuning, and man was i way off. The tuning Kim Thayil really uses is EEBBBB. There's another song, i think it's Mind Riot, which is in EEEEEE.
When i first discovered such bizarre tuning, it was with the Goo Goo Dolls who often use BDDDDD..so i thought they were really talented...until i listened to it, and decided it was shit. Kim Thayil really makes good use out of these tunings, you can definitely hear his Indian blood in their music. Oh, and he often uses dropped B, which i kinda figured by listening to soundgarden so much, but i thought it was Seven string action. I thought Tool was the only band actually using Dropped B, because the 7th interval between the B and A strings seemed so impractical, but Kim makes awesome use of it. Where does he get these tuning schemes (especially the straigh E tuning)? Is it sitar-influenced?

[The_Naked_Stalk]

Non-standard tuning is a staple of Soundgarden's music. The interesting thing about the way Thayil does it is that he uses so many octaves. The music is riff-based so it makes so much sense to tune the guitar this way. You get the voicings you want quite easily because complex harmonies are not really desired. It's straight-forward and practical. I would thing this is the influence for the tunings, but I definitely think Thayil's playing is reminiscent of sitar playing. Also many Soundgarden songs have a guitar tone that sounds quite a bit like a sitar.

If you are a fan of non-standard tuning in general. You cannot go another day without hearing Michael Hedges. He'll tear your head off. He reinvented the acoustic guitar using the principle of the composition comes first. Hedges didn't let anything about the guitar stop him from composing what he wanted to hear. He changed tunings and techniques. He developed an altogether unique aproach to the guitar. He even started using larger guage strings to facilitate a drop all the way to G1.

I STRONGLY suggest you listen to: "Aerial Boundaries" "The Rootwitch" "Rickover's Dream" and "The Naked Stalk" to get a taste of his style and if you want more after that tunes like "Arrowhead" "Ragamuffin" "Two Days Old" "Because It's There" & "Ritual Dance" are amazing.

[Tantobourne]

mindriot ended up busting me a few strings until I figured it out. What a bitch to detune/tune but the sound was nice and fat to hear. Cornell would play mindriot on stage himself, not Thayil. At least the two shows I saw them at. His other song, Seasons, off of the Singles soundtrack also has some wacked out tuning, too.

The only downside to mind riot is that I didn't run into another song that used that kind of tuning. Still fun to plunk around with, though.

[ihatemickjagger]

yeah, it really beefs up songs like mind riot and my wave...when i first played My Wave in standard tuning, my version of the Asus A progression that ends the chorus sounded very week on the high end, and it's because there's only one string per note on the chord....the fingering for that progression in EEBBBB is insane, a nice 5 fret stretch...but it sounds beautiful...that has always been one of my favorite parts of any song as far as pop music goes

[yllwcrystlstr]

i have a feeling they were just playing around, not seriously trying to copy something. I dont really hear sitar in a lot of their music, but damn, now I cant get the Like suicide solo out of my head. I have the tabulature for Down on the upside, which has some bizzare tunings. I also have the Louder than love tab book. Some of thos songs are damn hard to play (not the tuning, the fucking timing....try Get on the snake, I cant!). If you need anything photocopied or whatnot, pm.

[Marius]

I just tuned my guitar EEEEEE for the first time, and tried to play "Mind Riot". Sounds cool. I think i'm gonna mess around some more with this tuning, maybe make some cool riffs or something.