Been playing guitar for 25+ years, got my 1st 7 string in '96, and this BLATANTLY OBVIOUS tuning never occurred to me. Pure, unbridled freaken GENIUS, thanks a metric ton for sharing: Even if you choose to ignore the high E, muting the 1st string in chords is sooo much less awkward than trying to constantly kill off the 7th string with your thumb. Happy hols, Uncle Ben! I'll be re-learning my 7 string the next coupla days...
I have a secret tuning for you.... I came up with it about 2 years ago and I have NEVER heard it before the day me and a really hot 5 foot blond slut were sitting in my living room chilling at 3am...... I owe it to her and her listening ear when my B on my 7 had become slack because it was not left in tune.... I start with no tension on the B or 7th Go to drop D on the other 6 Slowly tune the 7 up till it hits the first supper Low harmonic D..... I only give you this knowledge because you said you've been playing for 25 years well so have I at the time that I read this comment Granite now you've been playing 29 years now check me out on bandlab Martyrs in the Kingdom the music is in this tuning
***** i have 7 string guitar so i know what i'm talking about, unless you're a shredder you don't need that high string. and it feels bad to play standart tuning songs on 7 string, keeping it 6 strings is an easier way of doing things without ever getting confused. just have two 6 strings guitar, one for lower tunings one for standart and you're good to go. 7 string is ok if you write and play your own songs but horrible for practicing other songs.
I disagree. I have a 7 string and getting confused is not even a problem once you get used to it. There's absolutely no downside in playing a 7 string instead of a 6 string.
An old band I was in had 2 guitarists and we played in 2 different tunings. They both had 6-strings for Drop-Bb. When we played in Drop-A, however, one guy had a 7-string tuned AEADGBE, the other had a 6-string tuned AEADF#B. They had to spend some time working out chord inversions and harmonies, but they made it work reall well.
Songs with this Tuning being played: 4:36 House of the Bari-Sun 4:55 Bari-way to heaven, 5:03 Sweet Home Baribama, 5:08 Bari in Black, 5:19 Bari-Bourrée in B minor. Everything with this new tuning for 7 string (just go up a string when using it) will feel the same like it did w/ a normal 6 string it'll just sound a perfect fourth lower just like it does on a Baritone Guitar.
I have a congenital condition from birth called "shoulder dysplasia". It makes wiping especially difficult. This is MY ailment. You wouldn't laugh at someone in a wheel chair, you wouldn't tease a blind man with his walking stick, and you certainly shouldn't say "F^%k you" to someone with congenital shoulder dysplasia .
+Chris Zoupa (Learn That Solo) Chris the guitar wizard who plays awesomely without a pick, I'm always amazed that you don't use one man, it looks so easy when you do it
Bob Greaves, You had the guts to say what I first thought, Har! Ya think a 12st Capo would cover one of these, or is it time to resurrect the old Pencil, and Rubber Band? LOL! Gb bg
This is exactly what I do when I don't want to keep my six-string in standard B. When I play Type-O-Negative covers (or other bands that use B standard) on my 7-string, I use the tuning you mention. It really does make a difference.
Sean Flaharty it turns out that those Baritone Tuning strings are kinda thick & that might mess up your 6 String Guitar hardware making it hard to go back to E standard tuning.
@@RockStarOscarStern634 Early on they didn't. I had a conversation with Kenny about the tuning. He said they had to adjust the necks of his guitars for the thicker strings and tension but mainly he used "normal" guitars.
@@RockStarOscarStern634 While this could be true, I also use my 7-sting for learning Estandard songs (just on the A-string), with no intention of putting my 6-string back to E-standard. I mainly use it for B standard and D standard songs. When I decide to drop tune any songs, I just do that on my 7-string. I have been keeping one of my 7's in A standard and dropping the second thickest string down to C. It's kind of strange at first to learn songs in drop tuning, not using the A or B strings (depending on the tuning) but I found it sounds better than using my 6s for those tunings. I also play upside down and backwards (just flipping a right hand guitar over with no alterations) so I am all shades of strange. Lol.
@@BenEller They're beautiful, that Baritone tuning turns it into a 6 string Baritone guitar with a high E. You and your future rock Guitar Chorus can take all chord and scale shapes, move them up a string and they'll work. It'll sound a perfect fourth lower like it does on a Bari Guitar.
@@BenEller That whole chorus of colorful 7 string electric guitars will really make your guitar chorus happy. That alternative tuning which has the G tuned down a half step to F sharp will allow you and your guitar chorus to play songs in the Booming Bari Register which they may find them easier to sing in that lower key.
Ok, I've been playing 7 string for almost 17 years, and wow. Just wow. This changes everything. The chord and scales were always the struggle, and this takes all of that and makes it make sense. Thank you.
By putting a capo on Fret 3 I was able to sing & play Flow my Tears by John Downland so it's actually 7 Course Renaissance Lute Tuning (Baritone Guitar + High E) down a Minor Third. It's actually the oldest tuning ever used.
THANK YOU! Seriously, this video just changed my world, bro - cheers. Very much appreciate you and your channel, Uncle Ben. I’ve learned more from you than any other channel on RU-vid, man. THANK YOU.
Holy shit, I actually knew one of the tips already. I always had to do this for Carcass and stuff. Realised it actually makes it easier to have a 6 string B guitar with an extra high string than a E tuned 6 string with a low B.
This tuning is actually the same as a Baritone Renaissance Lute in E, almost like taking your 7 Course Renaissance lute in E & tuning all the strings down a Minor Third. Or a 7 String Baritone Viol in E which would be a 7 String D Bass Viol tuned up a Step w/ Slightly thinner strings. Defiantly a Throwback to the past.
You can even play songs that are written in B Standard Tuning such as "Stay or Leave" by Dave Matthews or my favorite one "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles.
I have used this tuning ever since I was ten minutes into my first 7 string years ago and never looked back. I would tell others to give it a try and I am glad to see that you have posted this vid. Thanks
As far as 7-string guitar go you are the best person that ever lived on this planet thank you for this information. You have literally changed my life again
9:58 This tuning is also ideal for covering songs by bands that tune to B Standard without having to string one of your 6 String Guitars up with really thick strings.
My brain couldn't handle watching you play those cowboy chords and hearing a completely different chord. Mind blown definently will be using this tuning, thanks brother!
I usually avoid alternate tunings, but this one is definitely an exception! He gives a really thorough explanation, covering nearly all the bases and provides more than enough info to get a good start. This is one of those for the "I wish I'd seen this sooner" file…
This is exactly what I needed. I just bought my first 7-string, and ran into the same issue with a 'disgusting sound'. Thanks for the direction, my friend.
@@BenEller I love the 7 String Guitar, this alternative tuning which is Bari-Guitar w/ a High E tuning allows us to take every Chord & Scale Shape we know & move up a String meaning that we're going down a Fourth & it'll sound a fourth lower just like a Bari-Guitar.
Fun fact: this is actually a rennaisance lute tuning in B, while regular renaissance tuning is in G. I play 7-course lute and came up with an idea to get a 7-string axe and tune it accordingly. And this has brought me to this video :) This tuning is also quite popular among classical guitarists AND there is a thing called "Brahms guitar" which is a 8-string guitar in the form of regular 6-strings with high A and low B (I just recently learned about it).
rennaisance lute tuning would be in G but here this is in E (1st string is an E) so that means it would be more like "Baritone Rennaisance Lute Tuning", perfect for songs like "Flow My Tears".
Rine The Nightcrying Demon this video literally changed ma life before I was like yeah it's juste kids make open with there extra 7 string yeah dimebag say if you need a 7 string guitar to sound heavy your riffs sucks but I realise know dude there so many possibilities I need to buy a 7 string
Dude you kick ass! I was just playing on a super nice 7 string that's sale right now and I wasn't digging it but now I think I'm going to go back and get it. Thanks bro!
9:58 This tuning is also ideal for Covering songs by bands that tune down a Fourth to B Standard, this way you don't have to put insanely big strings on one of your 6 String Guitars.
Korn song sounded like A.D.I.D.A.S, i love that song in every way. Also thanks for the video, I recently got an RG7321 for $100 (That's Australian dollar too, absolute bargain). Only issue is that im so unmotivated to play, ive been practicing Lucretia solo for what feels like an eternity since i just can't bring myself to practice it properly :( I want what ever drug Brandon Ellis took to play guitar so well lol.
Lucretia is a masterpiece. Some straight up crazy notes that are hard to tell exactly what young Friedman was doing. Dig that pick in hard and invert your right hand till you look broken...give your wrist another half twist, and bust out 1.5 step bends with some juicy rakes on top. No problem.
Friedman is amazing, and yeah his right hand is so twisted when he plays lol. Those bends though, you know it's him when you hear those bends no matter what song he is playing.
If you bought a 100 dollar 7 string guitar, your unmotivated to play and are trying to play intermediate to expert level like lucretia instead of what you REALLY like (KORN) and think drugs give people magic powers to play guitar your either a MAJOR poser, a beginner (which is fine) or not realy a guitar player or ever want to be....I really hope you actually have a decent guitar or two and the cheap 7 splurge was just because it was so cheap. Ill give you a tip ok, learn the rhythms, fills and harmonies ONLY to lets say, Megadeth Peace Sells ENTIRE ALBUM without learning any solos. Play it everyday along with the album as a warm up for 6 months and you will be WAY better as a player because it will build strength control and hand eye coordination. of course after you learn the all the rythems you can learn other things but keep it as a mainstay and you will have something to do and gain a real sense of accomplishment 👍👍👍👍👍
6 лет назад
More liked "Shoots and Ladders" because A.D.I.D.A.S is played on highest octaves. "Shoots" sound like that more but A.D.I.D.A.S too :D
You really, really have a good way of explaining what you're teaching. Like another poster said, "I don't even have a 7 string and I watched the whole video" Thank you - from NYC
Thank you, I have a new Schecter KM 7 FR-S in Lambo Blue on the way (my first 7) and was looking to brush up before it gets here. Great advice! I am very excited!
Ok so I played it the day I got it last Tuesday 11 days ago, and I used your tuning. It was amazing. I haven't played since because my shoulder has been hurting so bad after playing for almost six hours standing up oops... Thanks again
Another fun one is to just drop the B down to A. You get wicked low dropped tuning, and a standard E concert guitar. Also, many bar grips will just have an extra low octave. Great for metal.
i appreciate that this is a resource that you are making available to people who don't intuitively think this way. i went from 6 to 8 and i spent a while in this tuning with the 8th dropped to E to give both the benefits you discuss here and accommodate my bad habit of indulging in uber-chug
I've always tuned my seven string this way since a few days after I got it. One of my six strings I had some extremely light gauge strings on it that sounded plain awful in E standard. I raised the pitch of each string by 5 semitones, and I really enjoyed the result! I liked it so much that I sort of forgot about my seven string for a couple weeks, and honestly I think she's still mad at me for that xD
Meghan Mackney & I used this tuning for a Rock cover of "Something Inside us So Strong" after re-stringing it & our Choir came. We also did a Parody of that song about proper Hygiene called "Make sure you wash your hands" when we finally got the Backing track up & Running again because we're under a lockdown.
MASSIVE THANKS. YOU HELPED A LEFT-HANDED: Long story short, I am left-handed. I was looking for Baritone guitars because of those warm low sounding full chords (like you played)! The left-handed baritones in the market are not high quality, and I cannot afford custom shop guitars. I was looking at 7 string guitars, but they didn't seem to solve the problem, I couldn't achieve those low sounding full chords, just because of the standard 7 string tuning people use for metal. After watching your video and seeing how easily I can tune my guitar to a baritone (with bonus of 1 high string for melodies) my search in market for left-handed baritone is swaped with left-handed 7 string. And surprisinngly, there are many high quality left-handed 7 strings in the market and I don't need to pay for customshop. THEN, your video also inspired me to look at 8 string guitars. Now I am interested to buy an 8 string. Tune the 7 higher string according to you, and have a low F# for djent. Again, there are high quality left-handed guitars, like Schecter Banshee ELITE 8. You opened a door to a whole new life for me. Thanks a lot!
For anybody who has trouble getting used to 7 strings, this definitely helps a lot. Props. Just a random thought: I personally don't really play 7 string, but when I do, I focus more on all notes in B and any chord aspects that match. So, say I do a B triad 1,4,5 (B,F# and E.) In a standard 7 string tuning, you can keep the same shapes and finger placements while having the extra low B for added fatness or an open bass thump technique. This may be pretty common but it might help anyone who's not familiar. So, like you said, knowing the notes (especially per key) is useful. S***, for starters, that's 7 major chords (21 if you consider each one has 3 positions) right there. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.
i tune my 6 and 8 string in perfect 4ths ( { F Bb } Eb Ab Db Gb B E ). the symmetry and ease of moving shapes and arping without remembering different fingerings is liberating for the mind and soul!
Hello Uncle Ben, I just got my first 7 string and I've been playing 6 string so long. Looking for any tips I can. This is all really great stuff you've covered!
Commenting on an ancient video but thanks so much, Uncle Ben, for this video. I bought a 7 string about a year ago, and just like you said, I was disappointed after I got over the fun CHUG stage. This video has me enjoying some classics in a new baritone voicing that has already led to a few cool new ideas! You Da Besssss!
Hey Ben, Thanks for the video, it's a different perspective for sure! I've played 7 strings for years, but what I did to alleviate the weirdness is I dropped the bottom string to A, and changed nothing else. I do 5th string 7 string full chords, and play the rest of the guitar like it's normal. Have you tried this method, or are you now too comfortable with the flat 3rd string method?
Wow. I have a nice 7-string that I thought I was gonna love, and it sat collecting dust for a long time. Because I was hammering the low string and just getting bored. I watched this and immediately tossed some new strings on it and now I am playing it again. Thanks for the knowledge.
Ben, my piss poor finger style technique is bringing a cloud of shame upon my family. Neither my dad, nor my step-dad are willing to speak to me. If you have the time, could you tell me why I suck? I'd just like for my dad (and step-dad I guess) to acknowledge my existence, and to be able to hang out in the acoustic section of Guitar Center without being laughed away. :-(
Excellent video! I played in a friend's death metal project for a while, just playing the riffs he wrote, and for this he insisted on a 7 string. So he borrowed one for me. I only had a few hours a week with that thing and just ended up doing what you talked about at the start, just plodding around on the low string. I could not step out of that box for leads, I was totally lost. This has turned me off 7 strings for years. Now I would seriously reconsider. Thanks a lot my friend. Greetings from Scotland!
Whatever you do don't just give up using it, once you learn how to use you'll have a blast! I'd love to teach you myself but guess that's not really feasible :)
I just tuned my 7 string to this tuning to practice lute music. It makes the top 6 strings essentially a lute. I wasn't using the 7th string at all for this as I didn't know what the lute tuning would be, but now I know I can practice regular guitar at the same time.
@@RockStarOscarStern634 Yeah. My 7's been tuned that way these past 3 years. Still haven't found strings to try tuning in fifths or adding a string above instead of one below. I can downtune it as low as I want, though.
You've helped me out so much in many videos. Lost intermediate guitar player almost 15 years. As I get older I look at it more seriously. Thanks , keep up the great work. Cheers from Saskatchewan. I play ESP demonology ltd , PRS SE , ibanez RG 7 , Taylor 110
I was wondering the same. The reason why I got a 7-string is because my 6-string is tuned to Eb-standard and I want to be able to play songs that are in E-Standard as well as some heavier and lower stuff. Whenever I want a Cminor or anything that's not possible with a E-standard 6-string, I play barre chords on my 7-string (you can get quite wicked dominant-7-add4-chords like this). The tuning in the video seems like a cool idea, but it makes playing some other chords extremely difficult, if not impossible at all. But that being said, needing several different tunings is a totally legit reason for getting more guitars. So if I get another 7-string, I might use this tuning on it. But for now, the change in the G-string would just take some getting-used-to, especially when soloing on the highest three strings.
This was my thought. I was thinking about getting a 7 string but then I realized that if I'm playing in a key signature that's centered around the B string (B, C, or D minor, etc.) then I wouldn't have much of a need for a high E. So I grabbed one of my brother's 6 string guitars and put it in B standard to go along with my E standard guitar. Those two tunings will cover pretty much any key or tuning you could want.
He is using the high e though. And this way, he needs one guitar instead of two. Although your having an extra guitar tuned to B is still a great idea.
Its not easy to intonate a 6 string guitar thats tuned to B standard, especially if the guitar is a certain scale length. I know a lot of death metal bands have tuned 6 string guitars that low but it can be a headache. My Gibson Flying V absolutely hated being in B standard. Nothing but tuning problems and I could never get the lowest string intonated properly. A 7 string guitar is made for having that low string so its a good option for someone wanting to tune low, even if they don't plan on using the highest string.
I tune a 7th stringer to Drop A (So AEaGDBe) but not just to do super low things but because Drop A (and subsequently Drop A on a 7th string) allows you to use otherwise hard to reach shapes. For example instead of playing your famous 9th power chord (to consecutive powerchords) on the drop A tuning you can use that more easily. More over you can move that 9th note to a minor or major 11th so instead of a dissonant feel of the 9th you have minor and major thirds you can use as you would major and minor third cords (Root, 5th and minor 11th which is filling for the minor third in this sort of chord inversion) only you're playing them below the power chord so that is more prominent and thus sounds better with heavy distortion and again the tuning is so low that it doesn't sounds as jarring so you actually play this really heavy riffs that still follow otherwise typical harmony around. You can also start incorporating 7th instead of 5ths and 11ths instead of thirds to have more of a jazz side but with tons of distortion and without sounding like completely dissonant.
this just hit me like a sack of bricks. using the "big bro, meet lil bro" is my secret weapon to figure out open tunings, but i was wondering about 8's. since the low 8 is f#, it makes almost too much sense to drop the g down to f#! here's a like, cave digger.
I had the scales down quite quickly after first purchasing my 7 string; in fact, it opened up a whole world of fretboard revelations as I became aware of the cycle of 7...the 3 patterns for 3 note per string scales are always in the same order, but they kinda rotate as you change positions. On a 6 string, one piece of the 7 groups of 3 notes (per string) is always hidden, and it’s simplicity is self evident once you run your scales on a 7 string (amazing!). I like this tuning, though... it doesn’t mess up the scale patterns really, you just adjust one string earlier... where it really shines is constructing chords the good old fashioned way. I also felt like I had a 6 string with an extra flabby 7th for some chugging but not much else...after all, it’s only 5 extra notes. But with this (simple!) approach you have given me a gift, my 7 string has just become exponentially more useful! Thank you Uncle Ben! ( I’m probably old enough to be YOUR Uncle, but whatever...😂). I’ll send you some 🍚.
Ben Eller This tuning is a whole step above a 7 String Bass Viol that's tuned A, D, G, C, E, A, D so the 7 String Guitar is tuned B, E, A, D, F#/Gb, B, E a whole step above a Bass Viol. If you drop this tuning down a step well now you can get into music of the Baroque era from Bach, to Vivaldi and play all the repritore written for the 7 String Viola da Gamba cause this tuning is based on the 7 String Guitar ancestor.
This is awesome. My band Conflict Theory plays 6 string in B standard. I have been looking into getting a 7 string and had the idea a few weeks ago to do exactly what you did so all of my original songs would still work without having to switch guitars between old and new material. This video was some great inspiration to go ahead and get that 7 string!
what I really appreciate on 7-string guitar it gives me more space for my thick fingers. Have played flamenco guitar for years and decades, and electric guitar has always been my worst nightmare. using pick is not such a big deterrent as is the completely unmanageable thin 6-string neck..
