Guitar Practice - 5 Super Simple Detuned Guitar Techniques

Along with learning how to play your guitar in what is known as standard tuning, E A D G B E. You can also change the pitch on your guitar strings by moving your strings up or down from the standard tuning on your instrument.

Get ready for another adventure on your guitar. When you enter the world of detuning your instrument, you have opened up yet another Pandora's box on your six string.

Lets take a look at 5 super simple techniques to follow when playing a detuned six string.

1. Practice: You will most definitely need to practice what you are going to play on your detuned instrument before you play live anywhere. When you detune your six string you pretty much are creating a new instrument to play on. If you are finding it difficult to play chords or scales on your detuned guitar, you may want to try a different detuned guitar variation, or learn some more chords and scales on a regularly tuned guitar. Once you've got a better grasp of chords and scales, go back to the desired tuning on your instrument that you want to learn on, and you'll find it much easier to adapt to your detuned instrument.

2. Practice single note playing: Try to find single note patterns or shapes on your detuned guitar. Chances are you will be unable to use the standard scales that you have learned on your regularly tuned instrument, and so, be ready to expand your playing abilities for some new crazy scale shapes. It's also fun to play your regular scales on your detuned instrument. Who knows, you might find a note pattern that sounds really cool, and create a new song based on this new note pattern.

3. Practice Chords: You are bound to end up with different chord shapes than what you are used to playing as regular chords. Try playing your regular tuned guitar shapes on your detuned guitar and see what your chord shapes sound like. You may need to manoeuvre your fingering around in order to play standard sounding chords. One neat thing that can happen on some detuned guitars is that you can get a nice natural chorus type sound on your guitar. This occurs due to two strings or more being played at the same time. It's kind of the same effect you get when playing a 12 string guitar.

4. Detune Slowly: When you are detuning your guitar, or, retuning your instrument to standard tuning, make sure that you turn your tuning pegs slowly. If you tune to fast you can very easily snap a string due to the changing tension on the guitar neck and string. Be extra cautious if you are also tuning up. The higher you tune up the more tense the string becomes. This of course can lead to your guitar sting breaking.

5. Try other stringed instruments: It's interesting to try out other stringed guitar like instruments such as the mandolin after you have learned how to adapt to a detuned guitar. When you begin playing other stringed instruments, try to figure out some chords and scale patterns and have fun playing similar yet different patterns and techniques on these other stringed instruments.