C-A-D-G-B-E

• OVERVIEW •

Dropping the 6str down four frets is simple – but will give you a different perspective on how the other open-string tones can fit together. Swapping the low E to a low C turns EADGBE’s somewhat vacant-sounding Em7(add11) open chord into a sultry, jazz-laden Cmaj9(13) voicing.

 

This drop makes it significantly wider than Standard too (28 vs. 24 semitones) – and also introduces a noticeable tension difference between the slackened 6str and the unaltered rest. Famously used by John Mayer for the (notoriously awkward) thumb-slapping riffs of Neon (when I play it, my 6str’s always buzzin’, just like…).

Pattern: 9>5>5>4>5

Harmony: Cmaj9(13) | 1-6-2-5-7-3

• TUNING TONES •

• SOUNDS •

Neon occupies a strange space in the modern guitarosphere – famed among Mayer fans as one of his catchiest pop tunes, and also among steel-string students as a thumb-twistingly challenging riff to try and master (see a good lesson by Six String Fingerpicking, and a quick TikTok tip from Mayer himself: “It’s the thumb and the index finger: they’re kind of working like a drum set…one smooth roll“).

 

Mayer has done little to make things easier for himself over time (true of the song, and, umm, other aspects of his image too). While the original album take was recorded on a more forgiving electric (plus a full backing band), later live performances would see him go solo acoustic, adding hard-groovin’ funk hammer-ons to the introduction (e.g. opening his Where the Light Is triple-album show), and scintillating chord solos in the later sections (e.g. at Soundstage: from 2:50).

 

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• Neon (Live in L.A.) – John Mayer (1999):

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“When sky blue gets dark enough,
To see the colors of the city lights,
A trail of ruby red and diamond white,
Hits her like a sunrise…”

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Aside from Neon, Drop C turns up on Map Of The Problematique (Muse), The Sparrow & the Medicine (Tallest Man on Earth), Flirtation (Brad Richter), and lots of Bob Dylan’s mid-1960s work, (e.g. Desolation Row, cp.4). Also listed in Mark Greyland’s Stringbreaker’s Notebook as ‘Doug Smith 1‘, in reference to Smith’s Shadowcasting instrumental. 

 

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• Map Of The Problematique (Wembley) – Muse (2007):

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“The title is a reference to a book called Limits to Growth (1972)…detailing the ‘global problematique’: a set of likely challenges the world might face in the near future…[and] the opening lyric, ‘fear and panic…’ may be a reference to Mars: the red planet’s two moons are named Phobos and Deimos, who were the Greek gods of Fear and Panic. Such a connection would fit in with numerous references to Mars on the album…” (MuseWiki‘s musings)

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• NUMBERS •

	6str	5str	4str	3str	2str	1str
Note	C	A	D	G	B	E
Alteration	-4	0	0	0	0	0
Tension (%)	-37	0	0	0	0	0
Freq. (Hz)	65	110	147	196	247	330
Pattern (>)	9	5	5	4	5	–
Semitones	0	9	14	19	23	28
Intervals	1	6	2	5	7	3

• 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…

• A ‘Slack Thwack’ (this with 6str -3): even lower
• Keola’s C (this with 5str -2): one twist away
• Kabosy (this with 5/1str -2): more low fifths

• MORE INFO •

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

• John Mayer’s varied insights: whatever you may think of the pop idol’s persona (several years on from dropping such douchebaggic un-wisecracks as “I don’t think I open myself to [Black women], my dick is sort of like a white supremacist”, he now takes to TV talk-show couches to describe himself as a “recovered ego addict“), his fretboard abilities are beyond question – find out more about his approach to the instrument via his own Instagram sessions, as well as a MusicRadar breakdown, and a TotalGuitar lesson article (“anchored in electric blues, with obvious tips of the hat to players like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, and Eric Clapton. He is equally at home on the acoustic guitar too, and has a solid foundation of modern acoustic techniques and approaches in his arsenal…”)
• C-centricity: Bob Dylan once described C major as “the key of strength, but also the key of regret” (while Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel, to whom my entire World of Tuning project is dedicated, deemed Dm to be “the saddest of all keys”). But why do Western traditions tend to use C as their ‘home tone’: as the root of the only un-accidentall’d major scale, and the focus of the treble clef? Honestly, I’m not fully clear on the answer yet – but a lengthy and often frustrating PianoStreet thread contains some great insights (“Ugolino of Orvieto [c.1380-1452], Italian theorist and composer…had studied the works of Prosdocimus de Beldemandis…The only difference is that Ugolino began on C rather than G, and split the semitones B-C and E-F into equal halves. Prosdocimus’s and Ugolino’s divisions, resulting in 5 flats and 5 sharps, were to have considerable influence on late 15th-century theorists in Italy…“)

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Header image: John Mayer plays Neon live in L.A. (2007)