Strings for a Specific Tuning

[boombox]

Didn't want to hijack Doug's string gauges thread, so started a new one.

Santa will soon be bringing me a copy of Stefan Grossman's 'British Fingerpicking Guitar', which I've wanted for a while as there are a few pieces tabbed in there not available anywhere else. Believing it must have originally been accompanied by a DVD, rather than a CD, I thought I'd try to find it on the web somewhere to help me when the book and CD come. I thought I'd lucked out when I found a lowish quality DVD rip .avi. However, it turned out to be British FingerSTYLE Guitar, by our very own treasure Martin Carthy. However, what I saw was excellent and the DVD will now be added to the Xmas list too.

My difficulty is this: Mr C uses a very strange custom tuning on this lesson - CGCDGA, which is one I've not come across. These lower tunings always seem to suggest to me I need to look at my string gauges, so I have been thinking of trying the D'Addario True Mediums DADGAD set as I tend to keep my Avalon in either DADGAD, CGCGCD or slight variants of both. But if I want to try this lesson, two questions:

1. Will this DADGAD gauge set be able to cope with the first string dropped down to an A, without it sounding like a sitar? MR C advocates substituting the 'e' string for another 'B', but I don't really want to have to do that fro other tunings I may want to use, eg tune a .17 up to an 'e' for C tunings, and as I can't afford the luxury of three guitars for Standard, DADGAD and 'Carthy'...

2. Will the nut take this thicker gauge without modifications?

All advice gratefully received.

[the greypicker]

Hi BB

You are really heading for the dark side here!!! I researched the idea myself more than once and always bottled out! You will definitely need to look at heavy gauge strings and the truss rod will maybe need a turn. It was the top E (or A) that posed the most problems.

Did you ever see this interview with MC in Acoustic Magazine?


http://www.acousticmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=22&Itemid=48

Martin says:

"I’m using heavy, heavy as I can get. It’s a standard heavy gauge set with two eighteen seconds on the top. Basically, eighteen to fifty nine. I’ve been using D’Addario, but I’m probably going to start to use John Pearse. He gave me some strings to try out and they’re fabulous! They’re the best strings I’ve ever had. At one point I used to play Albion strings, but they changed their specification and became less interesting."

His typical set is : .015, .018, .027, .039, .049, .059. Albion are now Newtone.

I think he is about as kind to his guitars as Tommy Emmanuel! Roger Bucknall from Fylde has looked after MC's old Martin 00018:

“I’ve spent a considerable part of my life inside his old 000-18,” he says. “New bridge plate twice, new bridge once, many crack repairs, and one major side patch. I’ve had the back off twice to get to complicated repairs, completely refinished it twice, and partially refinished it at other times—each time with French polish to avoid removing old lacquer and preserve the fragile old wood. Despite the heavy strings, it hasn’t needed a neck reset, although it has high action, and the back removal allowed me to pull things back into shape.”

Good luck!

John

[boombox]

Dark side, indeed! Maybe this explains why Mr C is so well known about being VERY possessive of his guitar - probably terrified someone will pick it up and think, "Oh, that's way out - I'll tune it." Then: TWANG!!

It was a very interesting article, thanks, John.

I guess I may try it out on my battered old 24 year old Fender-Gemini-II-in-need-of-a-neck-set, probably with a set if mediums and replaced top 'e' string, as he suggests. I'll feel a lot happier about majotr action movements on that - it's virtually unplayable at the moment anyway.

Speaking of good videos, someone lent me a copy of Martin Simpson's 'Making Connections in Open Tunings'. Really excellent explanation of tunings and their inter-relationships. Nice arrangements too of, among othr things, 'Little Musgrave' and also 'When A Knight Won His Spurs' in CGCFCD, a tuning I've not seen before, but it's very easy to get into.