Interesting story of a 60s D28

[Kerry Krishna]

I have never told the story here  before about a guy I knew in Montreal. He had a 60s D28 that he had owned since new. It truly was an exceptional sounding D28 too.

 The owner was REALLY into DADGAD, and in all those years,  had never been in standard tuning..

One night when we were both at a gig, I hit a few chords, then asked if I could retune it to standard? He looked reluctant for a few seconds, then said 'Sure'. So I had trouble getting it in tune to start. Nut was squeaking away for it, and it never did for his DADGAD, ...

When I finally got it in tune... the guitar sounded like absolute crap. I mean totally unredeemable, like it turned into a 80s Fender acoustic guitar....

 I played it like that for maybe 3 mins, all the while, the both of us were as puzzled as could be, and shaking our heads. At one point , I even got him to play it... then retuned to DADGAD, and ...
it was like a light switch being turned on.

To this day,  have absolutely NO clue what it was all about. 

 Anyone have any comment on this? Hesh, I am a looking at you Bucko... 

[Mark Pollock]

Open tunings just sound great! Just about any guitar will ring like a bell when in open tuning.

Add those tunings to a guitar that seems voiced to a particular key or group of notes, or which is strung to favor those notes, or which has a scale that favors those notes, or which is in a room that emphasizes those notes, and then add in whatever you ears are doing to music that day, and the differences should be stunning.

I have a Guild d25 that just sounds incredible in open G, and my trusty Harmony Sovereigns sound incredible in open D.

[Robbie Collins]

I think guitars tend to reach an equilibrium over time as various stresses are resolved.  I wonder if aging the guitar for 50 years while being tuned to DADGAD would cause it to reach a different equilibrium than if tuned to standard? If so, it doesn't necessarily seem to follow that this equilibrium would be sympathetic to the tuning.

[Paul Verticchio]

For what it's worth: I have made similar observations on my own acoustics.

IF I tune by ear to do some quick & dirty 'lick learning', I've noticed my guitars sound dull or overly bright and constipated. When I double check the tuning with El Snarko, I find that the guitar is tuned (overall) a bit flat for the 'dull' sound or a bit sharp for the edgy sound.

I must qualify that by saying that I'm not a 'guitar of the month' guy. My oldest acoustic is 18 years old and my newest is 4. My point: I know these guitars and how they sound and respond. I may have mentioned before that they all sound different to me each time I play one. I rationalize that with considerations of the room I'm in, the 'newness' of the strings etc.

Here's an interesting 'test', Kerry but unfortunately it will never be able to be performed: Think...What would that D-28 have sounded like if put into standard tuning and played like that exclusively for a month? My theory is that it would self acclimate to that tuning and begin to sound better & better, approaching the timbre of the DADGAD tuned version.. But then again, it's ALL speculation on my part.

Have a good'un, buddy :)

[David Collins]

Interesting story, but not one that any real conclusions or theories could be reliably drawn from. It may be appealing to believe that this particular instrument had 'broken in', 'warmed up', or 'learned' this tuning. Maybe that could be true, but with such a small, isolated, uncontrolled sampling, I'm afraid I'd have to consider it at least equally possibly that it is not.

I've played plenty of new guitars which seem to blossom in alternate tunings (higher or lower) than standard. I've played a good many old guitars which have spent their life in standard tuning, and exhibit the same bloom with certain offsets. This casual observation would lend to the argument that it is particular resonant frequencies inherent in the instrument's chamber, plates, damping of materials and neck, etc, which tend to allign this favorable character to different ranges.

In the case you mention, it seems that if the player favored DADGAD to begin with he would have been more likely to initially buy an instrument because it demonstrated characteristics favorable to this tuning when it was new (when you go shopping for a guitar and try it out in DADGAD, you're most likely to buy the one that sounds best in DADGAD to begin with).

Or maybe not. Maybe it did 'learn' this pitch and favors it because it was played there. I don't see reason to believe this the most likely theory, but I suppose it's possible. Unfortunately this is a more difficult query to put through reliable controlled testing, though if someone wants to write a grant proposal for acoustics research, I have a few ideas on testing arrangements that would be interesting to pursue. ;)

[Robbie Collins]

That's a good point ... selection bias.

[Kerry Krishna]

 Thanks for the responses so far. I am hoping Frank will jump in with an opinion on this , and any more that want to comment?