G-A-D-G-B-E

• OVERVIEW •

Associated with late Malian legend Ali Farka Touré (1939-2006), one of the Sahara Desert’s many towering guitar masters. The 6str is raised by a minor third, up to a G – which can then be used as a drone behind open-toned melodic lines in Gmaj (and its associated modes).

 

Touré’s tuning can be viewed as a form of ‘major Standard’: by re-rooting the 6str to a G (the relative major key of Em), you turn EADGBE’s open chord of Emin7⁽¹¹⁾ into a resonant G^6/9 voicing. Explore the rare low-end narrowness (only 2 semitones separate 6-5str) – and note the ‘parallel octaves’ available on 6+3str, handy for fluid vertical motions.

Pattern: 2>5>5>4>5

Harmony: G6/9 | 1-2-5-1-3-6

• TUNING TONES •

• SOUNDS •

Ali Farka Touré’s stripped-back, hypnotic sound is often spoken about as some ancient, lost branch of the Delta blues tree – and while I can definitely feel the similarities, they are more in overall mood than detail or direct lineage. Really, his style is an idiosyncratic fusion of various Arab-Islamic influences: local prayer chants, melodies from the one-string njarka fiddle, Mali’s jamana kura pop styles of the 1940s, and traditional songs from assorted tribes of the Timbuktu region (…yes, it’s a real place: situated deep into the Sahara).

 

Born in the remote Malian farming town of Niafunké, Touré’s middle name, ‘Farka’ means ‘donkey‘ – a compliment to his strong, stubborn nature (“I’m the donkey that nobody climbs on!”), and also an acknowledgement of the fact he was the only one of his ten brothers to survive past infancy. His songs are set in several local languages, including Songhai, Dogon, Peul, Bambara, and Tamaschek, with lyrics spanning spiritual possession and cattle herding to social inequality (Diaraby: “Your friends told you not to marry me because I’m poor, but I love you…”) and broader political happenings (Sabu Yerkoy: “The independence of Mali did us good…As we have got our rivers back”).

 

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• Live @ Waterman Arts – Ali Farka Touré (1988):

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Touré’s life always extended far beyond music. As detailed in a well-researched Guardian obituary, he “started out as a farmer, boatman, mechanic and tailor, and became interested in music after watching religious spirit ceremonies on the banks of the Niger“. Initially, he learned the njarka fiddle, ngoni (calabash lute), and djerkel (cowhide gourd lute) – only picking up the guitar in the 1950s (“after hearing the great Guinean guitarist Keita Fodeba“).

 

In his words, “No one ever taught me to play. I transposed what I knew from our one-string instrument onto a six-string guitar, and I tuned it according to my ear. I know all the Western tunings, but they are no good to me at all“. Touré tried out a few different layouts over time, often turning to this ‘raised G’ arrangement – sometimes involving capos and subtle transpositions (see his student Joep Pelt’s concise lesson on the djimbala style – but be warned: “Touré really stressed that you shouldn’t play this after midnight, since it is the music of the demons…”).

 

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• Festival in the Desert – Ali Farka Touré (2003):

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“It all comes from the history and tradition of Mali…from the heart and the blood. What I do, I do with spirituality…When you see me on stage, that spirit kicks in, and I become someone different”

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Touré always took a selective approach to cross-cultural collaboration, but shared his energies generously when he did link up with artists from outside his own tradition. Highlights include The River (1990), with folk musicians from Ireland, The Source (1991), featuring Taj Mahal and Nitin Sawhney, and In the Heart of the Moon (2005), a divine trans-Malian interweaving with kora master Toumani Diabaté, recorded as he was gravely ill with bone cancer.

 

When it came to the much-posited connections between his music and American blues, he appeared to hold shifting opinions over time – sometimes marvelling at the melodic similarities, while also expressing frustration at how this lens could distract listeners from hearing the sounds of his own traditions on their own terms. On first hearing John Lee Hooker in 1978, he “instantly recognized the music: I knew where it had come from, even if he didn’t”, while elsewhere stating that “I play traditional music, and I don’t know what blues is. For me, blues is a type of soap powder“.

 

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• Transatlantic Blues – Ali Farka Touré & Corey Harris (~2003):

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“[They] left with their culture…but the biography, the ethnicity, the legends, they [were lost]. Still, their music is African…there are only cities and distances separating us – our souls and spirits are the same…”

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A 1999 Songlines interview further sketches out Touré deep connection to his desert homeland (he served as the mayor of Niafunké for several years): “I’m a farmer first. Music is very important to me, but my profession is agriculture. I’ve got 11 children and I have to cultivate the land. Whenever I leave the village, I feel I am shirking my responsibility”.

 

This uncompromising attachment meant that, in order to record the follow-up to his 1994 Grammy-winning album Talking Timbuktu (with Ry Cooder), his World Circuit label had to transport a full generator-powered recording studio deep into the desert (“a three-day journey up the Niger river…by steamboat, or an 18-hour drive across the Sahara”). Based on the results – his scintillating 1999 electric record Niafunké – it was undoubtedly worth all the hassle (at least Fitzcarraldo’s jungle opera schemes are fictional…well, mostly).

 

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• Diaraby (+translation) – Ali Farka Touré & Ry Cooder (1994):

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“People call my music the Africa blues.

I just call it the music of the people.”

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• NUMBERS •

	6str	5str	4str	3str	2str	1str
Note	G	A	D	G	B	E
Alteration	+3	0	0	0	0	0
Tension (%)	+41	0	0	0	0	0
Freq. (Hz)	98	110	147	196	247	330
Pattern (>)	2	5	5	4	5	–
Semitones	0	2	7	12	16	21
Intervals	1	2	5	1	3	6

• See my Tunings Megatable for further such nerdery: more numbers, intervallic relations, comparative methods, etc. And to any genuine vibratory scientists reading: please critique my DIY analysis!

• RELATED •

—Associated tunings: proximities of shape, concept, context, etc…

• Drop C (this with 6str -7): nearly a ‘flip’ of the alteration
• Mi-composé: another string-raiser used by African legends
• G ‘Terz’ (raise 5-1str by +3 too): a cute 19th-century mini-guitar

• MORE INFO •

—Further learnings: sources, readings, lessons, other onward links…

• Ali Farka Touré: learn more about the Malian guitar legend in a 2006 BBC World Routes radio documentary, a 2005 Independent overview, and the Guardian‘s well-balanced obituary – and hear from the man directly in the aforementioned Songlines feature At Home with Ali Farka Touré (“We were in the middle of the landscape where the music comes from, and that in turn inspired me and the other musicians. I don’t feel as good anywhere else as I do at home”)
• Timbuktu: I’m surprised how many people are surprised to learn that it’s a real place – see what it looks like, and read more about the city’s rich history in its UNESCO World Heritage listing (“Founded in the 5th century, the economic and cultural apogee of Timbuktu came about during the 15th and 16th centuries. It was an important centre for the diffusion of Islamic culture…a crossroads, and an important market place where the trading of manuscripts was negotiated…”)

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Header image: Touré on the Savane album cover (Jonas Karlsson)