Hence many of the notes I wanted to play were out of my limited reach and to do what I

wanted to do I had to make notes come to me by re-tuning one or more strings. Admittedly

not a revolutionary thought, as people have been doing it for centuries whenever a guitar was

played.  From the Flamenco players of Spain to the blues men of the Mississippi delta.

I don't know who invented what has come to be known as normal tuning but he did a pretty

good job. It makes the guitar into a very practical instrument, capable of rhythm and melody

over quite a large range. (You try singing three and a bit octaves and you will see what I mean).

I have assembled a collection of alternative tunings that enable a player to extend the range

of both voicing and the sound of the guitar, starting with the simple re-tuning of the bass

string to some of the more bizarre fruits of my imagination.

This is in no way intended to be a course of instruction, but rather a series of hints and ideas

that would hopefully lead to further experimentation. With six variables there are a lot of

tunings, some work, some don't.

The tablature was done for me by my good friend Derek Brimstone (himself not an idiot on

the silver strings).

Happiness
Michael Chapman

For those people who are wondering what they have clicked into, Playing Guitar The Easy Way was a 1978 guitar tuition LP and extensive booklet produced by Michael Chapman. What you are seeing reproduced here is an online version of the booklet which gave tunings, information and tablature for the tracks on the LP. We haven't yet worked out how to make the recordings available on-line, though if anyone feels like converting the tracks to MP3 or Real Audio files, especially the intros so that people can check tunings then I would be grateful.

Marc Higgins (not a guitarist, but I do have skillful ears)

Thanks to Jim Polmear for having the patience of a saint scanning in all the images and re-typing the text.