B-F#-B-G-B-E
• OVERVIEW •
A fascinating blend of Standard + ‘Drop D -3‘ (3-1str & 6-4str respectively), closely associated with Australian prog-rockers Karnivool. According to its creator, lead guitarist Drew Goddard, “It just made sense to have the low tuning, while keeping the first strings high. The best of both worlds I guess…I liked the sequence of natural harmonics you could make…”.
Three Bs are evenly separated by three unique tones (E, F#, G) – a layout which would ring with a more pronounced dissonance if not for its wide-spread octave separations. The slackened 6-5-4str give a Baritone-register B power chord (‘1-5-1‘), while 3-2-1str offer a first-inversion Emin triad (‘b3-5-1‘) – with a characteristic b6th interval in the middle (4>3str).
Pattern: 7>5>8>4>5
Harmony: Bsus4(#5) | 1-5-1-b6-1-4
• TUNING TONES •
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• SOUNDS •
Despite being a blend of two common tuning patterns (Standard and Drop D), set in two common guitar keys (Emin and B), separated by just one cycle-of-5ths step (E>B), Karnivool’s signature layout is near-unknown outside of their own work. Used to great effect by the band on many (maybe most) of their recordings, e.g. Shutterspeed, Simple Boy, New Day, and “pretty much every song” of the 2005 Themata album.
Goddard expands: “We like to mess around with [B-F#-B-G-B-E]…Sometimes we drop the G to an F#, [or] the E to a D, which is this open Bm chord [more precisely: Gmaj7/B]…It really makes you look at the fretboard in a different way, and fumble around and find happy accidents“.
- New Day – Karnivool (2009):
“That’s the role of art. It’s got to be this mirror. It’s got to be this reflection to things – to say it another way, show it another way, feel it another way and share. Again, just trying to make things fucking better or maybe not…Just stir some shit up, I don’t know…we’ll find out!” (Karnivool vocalist Ian Kenny)
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• NUMBERS •
| 6str | 5str | 4str | 3str | 2str | 1str | |
| Note | B | Gb | B | G | B | E |
| Alteration | -5 | -3 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tension (%) | -44 | -29 | -29 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Freq. (Hz) | 62 | 92 | 123 | 296 | 247 | 330 |
| Pattern (>) | 7 | 5 | 8 | 4 | 5 | – |
| Semitones | 0 | 7 | 12 | 20 | 24 | 29 |
| Intervals | 3 | 7 | 3 | 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…
- Carnatic Drone: still three Bs, but separated with three Es
- Open Csus: just one twist away from the one-step transposition
- Ghost Reveries: another Karnivool-featured slackened setup
• MORE INFO •
—Further learnings: sources, readings, lessons, other onward links…
- Drew Goddard: check out interviews by the tuning’s inventor in Asymmetry, MusicRadar, and Roland (“I try to keep things fresh, messing with the tunings a lot. There’s an open Dmin9 [DADFAE]…on All I Know & Set Fire To The Hive [cp.5]….I’ve been messing around with having a strange interval between [6>5str], the thicker strings, like a b5 or b6…I’ve got a 6 string baritone [in] GDGGDF, which has got an octave jump between [4>3str]”)
- Karnivool: find out more about the Aussie rockers via their own 10-year retrospective on the above-linked Themata album – and also the origins of their distinctive name (“we scored a few local pub gigs, and the name ‘Karnivool’ tagged along. No one is really partial to it, but it’s just one of those things that stuck. There’s some ancient folklore that someone called the original three guys [in the band] ‘a bunch of clowns’ or something…”)
Header image: Karnivool play Melbourne in 2010 (Steve Collis)
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George Howlett is a London-based musician, writer, and teacher (guitars, sitar, tabla, & santoor). Above all I seek to enthuse fellow sonic searchers, interconnecting fresh vibrations with the voices, cultures, and passions behind them. See Home & Writings, and hit me up for Online Lessons!
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