i like sonic youth

I can play that on standard too. Look at what you tabbed out. Its just a bunch of root and fifths (=powerchord) It doesnt warrant the use of alternate tuning....

i'm the other guy who can play some SY songs with standard tunnings...
i can play sunday (i posted some chords time ago), and some thurston songs from Psychic Hearts ...

i can play the intro, main progression, and chorus in standard. And no thats not how I play the intro. The fact is you cant get the same exact octaves as the song, but you can get the main idea down and to a casual fan probably pass it off as how they play it. I dont see how this warrants the use of alternate tuning. The tuning is irrelevant for the song. Thurston wasnt thinking how weird he could get it sound. He was thinking of how to play a V- IV- I progression in A followed by the IV chord of D. Why do you think people think U2 copied off the chorus riff. Because it can be easily immiated in standard....

your intro tab is wrong anyway....

sgfh

and im thinking about recording it. The intros tricky in standard but can be done if I practice, im not going to bother with the solo licks if I record, just the meat of the song...

interesting topic and i do agree with who create it.
though i don't think all the new songs are simple power-chords.... but the fact is that they don't seem to willing to explore the weird sound of a guitar in aternative tuning that they used to.

i liked them better when they explore the advantages of a guitar in aternative tuning...

I guess the alternate tuning thing has become kind of gimmicky, but most bands have gimmicks now, most of them very un-innovative and boring; they all sound alike. At least SY has something to seperate themselves from the rest of the pack. Especially since a lot of "indie" bands have become increasingly popular. Sonic Youth still makes challenging and interesting music, and honestly, I don't care how they go about doing it. As long as it gets done, I'm happy.

I remember an interview to Lee and he said standard tuning has a standard sound.
Nothing more true!

Derek Bailey. Derek Bailey. Derek Bailey.

Need I go on?

yes, you need. as brilliant as bailey was, his style of playing wouldn't really be suitable for playing what are still essentially rock songs. he was all about timbre and such rather than interjecting new harmonic and tonal possibilities into rock music.

i hate when people criticize standard tuning. There are actually alot of stuff you can do with drones in standard just because of the way it is set up. Im not saying standard is superior, my guitar is usually in a sonic youth tuning or one of my own, but to just say standard is standard is a very lame excuse. And plus, nothing sounds better then some old fashioned country jams in standard tuning...

I think if people didn't misuse words we wouldn't have this lame debate :
- standard tuning has NOTHING to do with whether something is tonal or not : just because u use non standard tuning doesnt mean you make atonal music

- that said, SONIC YOUTH has never been atonal. Yes of course, there's a non tonal part in almost every song but every song they did as SY(except those found in WM or NYCGF ) is TONAL : meaning it has a tonality.
DDN is definitely TONAL (or MODAL depending on the song ). However the released SYR is rarely tonal.
The reason why Sonic Youth (and they're far from being the only ones) uses alternate tunings is because :
- Some chords are easier to play in a certain tuning
- The harmonics when sounding the guitar aren't the same.

This may seem obnoxious but you can't let people bullshit you with this tonal - non tonal stuff.

perhaps it's not an argument about tonality/atonality, but an argument over the actual tone or timbre of the notes at certain places on the instrument.

lunberg no, your wrong. When the tones of a chord are in close-voicings, or non-standard scale tones they are considered atonal. Every song on Confusion is Sex LP has atonal guitar, if you want you can try and prove me wrong by mentioning a song or part of a song that has a chord or lick that has tones that can be found in a standard western scale during 1981 to 1983....


I do agree with your first sediment though. The tuning does not tell wheiter the song is tonal or not, for instance the SY EP has most songs in standard, and yet they are atonal...

Lundberg fucked her.

Holy Hell? This thread sure turned into an argument pretty quickly. lol. Fucking guitarists. (being one, I understand.) Straight Burnt.

It was an interview to Derek Bailey, not Lee? I thought to remember well..........

good answer

As a guitarist, my only reason picking up Day Dream Nation back then was the weird sounding guitar sound. We all know that Sonic Youth is the best and most original band ever. Sonic Youth with standard tuning on all songs would have been a total bore...

Good reason to pick up the guitar. Also, good avatar.

I think we both agree on the first part : what I meant is that even if the guitar is said to be atonal, doesn't mean the SONG itself is atonal (in the musical sens of the word).

Also, you have the problem that atonal, like many musical phrases, has different meanings - Atonal can mean the serial composition of Schoenberg (this is the way I generally use it). Atonal can mean non-melodic... which in itself is a troubled term. I find Confusion... to have some lovely melodies (Bad Mood, Shaking Hell) against dissonant guitar. It's a non-conventional sense of counterpoint (for rock music), so it's faintly atonal, but I find that a bit tenuous. Atonal can also mean (perplexingly for me) drone-based, which I always think should be properly named monotonal.

Whatever, I do disagree that where rock music uses tonal ideas that are uncommon to rock music it is somehow inventive - music theory exists for a good reason, rock music is not exempt.

Fuck sonic youth! yesterday's revolutionaries have become today's cheesedicks!

You must reputation yadayada.

I believe the question is "Why standard tuning?"

i like alt. tunings.
when ever I'm having trouble writing something I find a new tuning and it usually helps.
My latest find is D-A-D-F#-C#-E(L TO H)

My latest accidentally tuning discovery was DGBBEE. At least I think I discovered it.

It's only good for one song but I'm proud of it.

+1 ...

I'm really confused as to why it matters how they tune their guitars..

Hah.

Threads like these were interesting. There's a shit ton of people who replied to this who don't post anymore.

"no, your wrong. When the tones of a chord are in close-voicings, or non-standard scale tones they are considered [u]atonal"


no... you're wrong!

when the tones of a chord are in close voicings all that means is the tones of a chord are in close voicings. i can play stacked major and minor seconds for days and not play atonal music. i just stay with these notes for example c,d,e,f,g,a,b and i'm tonal.... there is a lot of dissonance to be found in tonal music.

there are plenty of instances where non standard scale tones are used in tonal music. jazz music for instance. all of those sharp and flatted ninths, fourths, fifths, sixths, sevenths...... all used in very tonal music. charlie parker was all about tonal music!!!

a·to·nal·i·ty [ey-toh-nal-i-tee] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation


–noun Music.
1. the absence of key or tonal center.

when atonal music first appeared in the classical world schoenberg was the big guy. he decided he was going to take all 12 tones of the octave and have them treated equally. as in there would be no dominant 5th interval or chord that wil resolve neatly and predictably to the one for example.

tonal music uses 7 specific notes from the octave. each has it's own unique use. we can add the other 5 tones from the octave to these 7 tones and still maintain tonality. you could look at tonality almost as a hierarchy of tones.

atonal music demolishes this hierarchy and any 12 notes at any time can be fair game. it demolishes the tonal center.

lets take confusion is sex. alot of it is tonal!!!!! sometimes when lee and thurston are making screeching noises with their guitars more often than not the bass is thumping away on one or more notes. this keeps the song grounded in tonality while lee and thurston fly above with their atonal textures. i have not done an analysis of the cd or anything like that so there indeed may be instances of atonality but more often than not.....

generally speaking soinc youth the rock band are a tonal band that use atonal textures. every now and then they may accidently be atonal in the sense of schoenberg but rarely. i cant see them writing out tone rows and composing that way.

one last thing.....

i dreamed i dream

the whole fucking thing is is the key of C. although in one chord an E flat is used simultaneously with an E natural. this is an example of a non chord tone used in the context of some crushing tonality.

what the fuck happened to that math guy anyway? did he die?