From: Chris Barrus, xibalba@no-fi.com
Subject: Re: 12 String Tunings
Date: 2/25/2002 5:17:55 PM
To: Seance List, seance@lists.no-fi.com


On 2/25/02 1:31 PM, Carl and Racinda Chave at crchave@crchave.screaming.net
wrote:

> He asked me to post to the list and see if anyone knows how a 12 string is
> traditionally tuned.  I know there are a few variations as with the 6 string
> but is there a more common of the bunch way to tune a 12?

Nothing particularly different from a standard 6-sting.  On my 12 I tune
down a step because it's not that sturdy of a guitar - it's a Fender
Coronado XII - and it's a Task Of Sysyphus to keep it in tune.

One side-effect of tuning down a step I later learned is that you can play
any Smithereens song.  I ran across an interview with Jim Babjak who
mentioned that when he was a kid he read that Black Sabbath tuned down a
step ("to sound heavy man!") and so he did the same and just stayed there.
Only he later found out that Sabbath tuned down two steps to C.

I seem to recall that Jimmy Page uses DGCGCD for most of the 12-string
stuff, particularly "The Rain Song", but Page uses just about any kind of
tuning.

DADAAD (sometimes DADGAD) is one of my favorite tunings.  If you've got a
couple of echo/delay/choruses going it's instant shoegazer heaven.

One other tuning to try, especially if you've got an effects chain, is
EEEEEE.  Yup - all to the same note.  Bruce Licher of Scenic/Savage Republic
uses this a lot on that Mosrite 12-string of is.

> PS. is removing all the strings on a guitar to clean the neck or whatever
> hard on the neck- and if so is it even worse to do to a 12?

Yes indeedy.  Change strings one at a time.

-c.

-- 
___________________________________________________
Chris Barrus, No-Fi, etc.     http://www.no-fi.com/