Some thoughts on Tunings

[Luke_Pawsome]

Since the shamisen is a very forgiving instrument regarding string tension, I experimented with different kinds of tunings. I was actually pretty surprised how low the instrument can be tuned and still work and sound fine. Especially Major scales sound wonderful in something like A E A or G D G (as a bass player, I’m a little biased towards lower frequencies of course ).

But anyway, I was wondering if perhaps more people like to tune down, especially when improvising? Maybe even some pro players?

[Denver_Norwood]

You’ll hear a lot of pieces tuned down to F# when playing with male vocal accompaniment. I really like the way the lower keys sound; it would be nice to hear more original compositions in that F# to A range instead of the typical C to D range.