Log In
Register
2.17pm
5 September 2012
Offline
So I’ve been curious about Drop D tuning; most people will cite “Moby Dick” by Led Zeppelin, and “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” by the Beatles, released two months earlier, as the first songs to use it, and those who are a little more read-up will tell you “Dear Prudence “, written in 1968, but I’ve noticed that “Act Naturally “, released by our very own Beatles in 1965, actually uses Drop D on the lead guitar, which we could chalk up to yet another Beatles first. So I challenge you, can you name a song earlier than “Act Naturally ” that uses Drop D tuning, by any artist?
The following people thank CebeBee13 for this post:
WeepingAtlasCedars3.35pm
10 August 2011
Offline
Keith Richards is a long-time fan of tuning his guitar in D, E, … so I would look in that direction.
(Never thought of “Act Naturally ” in that fashion. Will have to re-listen)
"Into the Sky with Diamonds" (the Beatles and the Race to the Moon – a history)
5.15pm
5 September 2012
Offline Into the Sky with Diamonds said
Keith Richards is a long-time fan of tuning his guitar in D, E, … so I would look in that direction.(Never thought of “Act Naturally ” in that fashion. Will have to re-listen)
I was quite surprised to hear it, especially as Help ! wasn’t exactly their most experimental album. If you listen to the first few seconds of the song, you can hear the low deep twang on the guitar, that bottom note is a low D. It’s possible that George tuned to D standard, but the tab I read was in drop D and sounded perfect.
5.30pm
8 April 2016
Offline If they used drop D, wouldn’t it be really tricky for them to play the open G chord (the home chord of the song)?
7.04pm
23 July 2016
Offline Skelter said
If they used drop D, wouldn’t it be really tricky for them to play the open G chord (the home chord of the song)?
They would either do a G/D
e|3|
B|3|
G|0|
D|0|
A|2|
D|0|
or a G/B
e|3|
B|3|
G|0|
D|0|
A|2|
D|x|
Maybe you should try posting more.
9.30pm
8 January 2015
Offline Robert Johnson wrote songs in drop D tuning in the late 30’s, and he was a known influence on British blues. But he was just one of many Delta bluesmen to use the tuning, which goes back to its use in classical guitar. So it depends on how you want to define “first” or “earlier” 
The following people thank ewe2 for this post:
Necko, Shamrock Womlbs, Oudis, LeppoI'm like Necko only I'm a bassist ukulele guitar synthesizer kazoo penguin and also everyone. Or is everyone me? Now I'm a confused bassist ukulele guitar synthesizer kazoo penguin everyone who is definitely not @Joe. This has been true for 2016 & 2017 
but I may have to get more specific in the future.
2.40am
8 April 2016
Offline HMBeatlesfan said
They would either do a G/D
e|3|
B|3|
G|0|
D|0|
A|2|
D|0|or a G/B
e|3|
B|3|
G|0|
D|0|
A|2|
D|x|
I just realised you said lead guitar, which does not really play any chords.
3.10am
24 March 2014
Offline ewe2 said
Robert Johnson wrote songs in drop D tuning in the late 30’s, and he was a known influence on British blues. But he was just one of many Delta bluesmen to use the tuning, which goes back to its use in classical guitar. So it depends on how you want to define “first” or “earlier”
That’s very right. They use it a lot in classical guitar, a lot of scores from 19th century and on. Here’s an example where you can see the 6th string should be tunned in D
"I Need You by George Harrison"
4.03am
Reviewers
17 December 2012
Offline You also have to bring in the influence of Dylan at the time. Aside from standard tuning, on those first six albums that amazed John and George in particular, Bob also had songs in Open E, Open G, Drop D (A Hard Rain ‘s a-Gonna Fall and Mr. Tambourine Man being good examples of that), Double Drop D and Drop C.
It’s always accepted that Bob influenced the changes in how they wrote lyrics. I’d suggest that realising how often he switched to alternate tunings is likely to have as important effect on their songwriting.
The following people thank Ron Nasty for this post:
ewe2, Oudis, Beatlebug, WeepingAtlasCedars, Leppo"I only said we were bigger than Rod... and now there's all this!" Ron Nasty
To @ Ron Nasty it's @ mja6758
The Beatles Bible 2020 non-Canon Poll Part One: 1958-1963 and Part Two: 1964-August 1966
5.08am
8 January 2015
Offline I should also mention Elmore James, influenced by Robert Johnson and a huge influence himself on slide players, and commonly played in open D tuning, which is the full version of drop D. That’s the point of the joke in For You Blue (it’s in D).
The following people thank ewe2 for this post:
Ahhh Girl, Necko, Vera Chuck and DaveI'm like Necko only I'm a bassist ukulele guitar synthesizer kazoo penguin and also everyone. Or is everyone me? Now I'm a confused bassist ukulele guitar synthesizer kazoo penguin everyone who is definitely not @Joe. This has been true for 2016 & 2017 but I may have to get more specific in the future.
6.58am
6 July 2016
Offline There’s a great little guide here about Drop D tuning for any non musical people who are wondering what this is all about. It’s a great site too. http://www.justinguitar.com/en…..Tuning.php
The following people thank Leppo for this post:
Oudis, ewe2Pivotal Moments in Beatles History No.118: Yoko helps herself to one of George's digestives.
1.33pm
23 July 2016
Offline ewe2 said
For You Blue (it’s in D).
Remember, For You Blue is in open D, not drop D.
Maybe you should try posting more.
11.57pm
15 May 2015
Offline Maybe I don’t know the full scope of the “drop D” tuning, but to me it just means you loosen the bottom E bass string so that it sounds D below E. The main reason for doing this is if your song is in the key of D and you want to hit that low D once in a while.
As for the question above, how would you play a G chord then? Well, you could play G with a D bass, as someone suggested — or you can simple stretch your pinky down (or up) to press down on what would ordinarily be the A note on the E bass string but what becomes G when you have loosened the string down to D.
James Taylor has used that a lot — “Sarah Maria” and “Millworker” among other songs…
A ginger sling with a pineapple heart,
a coffee dessert, yes you know it's good news...
3.35am
8 January 2015
Offline HMBeatlesfan said
ewe2 said
For You Blue (it’s in D).Remember, For You Blue is in open D, not drop D.
I know they’re different tunings, it’s a slide guitar, that’s the point of the joke, but thanks for pointing out the obvious. The concept of alternative tunings itself was through people like Elmore and Bob. And that’s been passed down, from George to none other than Peter Frampton, from this interview in Guitar Player:
You also worked with George Harrison . In what ways did his guitar playing influence what you do?
I definitely stole a couple of tunings from him [laughs]. He used to have acoustic guitars all over his house that were tuned in various ways and I’d pick them up and say, “What the hell is this?” and then get out my cigarette pack and write down the tuning. I hadn’t really experimented with alternative tunings before that, and he definitely pushed me in that direction. And obviously his slide playing influenced me. The lead riff on “Something ’s Happening” is sort of Harrisonesque.Do you remember any of those tunings you wrote on cigarette packs?
The tuning that I remember the most is one that I used myself on “Wind of Change.” The low E and Astrings drop down to D, the fourth string remains unchanged, the third string goes up to A, the second string up to D, and the first string up to F# , so there’s a D triad on top and three Ds on the bottom. It’s a very strange tuning, but oh my God , it sounds huge.
The following people thank ewe2 for this post:
Beatlebug, WeepingAtlasCedarsI'm like Necko only I'm a bassist ukulele guitar synthesizer kazoo penguin and also everyone. Or is everyone me? Now I'm a confused bassist ukulele guitar synthesizer kazoo penguin everyone who is definitely not @Joe. This has been true for 2016 & 2017 but I may have to get more specific in the future.
7.55pm
4 September 2019
Offline Anyone know why Paul sometimes tuned his acoustic guitar down a whole step to D standard? Has he ever addressed this in interviews? Guitar players might be more likely to know this one.
I know Paul tuned down to D standard on Yesterday , and Heart Of The Country , and I’m sure there must have been others. I’ve Just Seen A Face maybe? If you know any more, list them.
My guess is he did this mostly for vocal reasons, to change the key, to make it easier to sing (sort of like a capo in reverse). But other possible reasons could have been for the comfort of slacker strings, making it easier to bend the acoustic strings, because he liked the sound of the guitar tuned down, or even just an accident.
4.56pm
23 January 2022
Offline I just found a bit in The Lyrics where he talks about it!
In the entry for Yesterday :
Another thing that happened around this time is that we realised the song would sound better in the key of F. But I’d written it in G. You can get used to playing a song with certain chords, and if you try to play them differently on a guitar, you have to relearn the song, which can alter the way the song sounds. If you want to go higher, you can use a little device called a capo. But if you want to go lower, it’s not always so easy; you can run out of room. So, what we did here was to detune the guitar by a whole tone. This means that when you’re playing the note G, what actually sounds is the note F. These kinds of different tunings are quite common now, but tuning all six strings down a whole tone was a new trick back then, and it meant I could play the guitar the way I’d written the song, but in the key that we thought sounded best.
He goes on to say that they workshopped doing Yesterday in the style of Delia Derbyshire (the creator of the Dr Who theme tune). That would have been something!
I would guess from this that Yesterday was the first song he used this tuning on, and the later songs were either for the same reason or because he liked something (the tone or whatever) about it and wanted to reproduce that. IIRC Jenny Wren is in the same tuning.
The following people thank meaigs for this post:
forn, Rube, LeppoMy hot take is that after the Beatles split they went down the paths of spiritualism, solipsism, alcoholism, and Paul McCartney
-- Jason Carty, Nothing is Real podcast
6.24pm
4 September 2019
Offline meaigs said
I would guess from this that Yesterday was the first song he used this tuning on, and the later songs were either for the same reason or because he liked something (the tone or whatever) about it and wanted to reproduce that. IIRC Jenny Wren is in the same tuning.
Maybe he keeps an acoustic guitar around tuned down to D standard, just in case he feels like playing Yesterday (he does do it live, after all). If you accept that, maybe he picks it up from time to time and writes a song on it. Or maybe all these songs happened the way Yesterday did.
The following people thank forn for this post:
meaigs 1 Guest(s)