So i was reading about tuning the shamisen and i was wondering if any of you could recomment a tuning for playing along with the guitar? Mostly Estandard and dropped D
Hi Deshaun,
Here are the three main shamisen tunings. Click on the buttons to hear the tone, and you can match it to your guitar. http://bachido.com/overview/tuning
San-Sagari is like playing on a guitar, which makes it easier to play most scales as all of the tones are within 4 “frets”. Unfortunately you don’t get the same resonance sound using this tuning compared to Niagari, in my opinion.
Yes Kyles link should help. and Karl and I have discussed this already but from my personal viewpoint (and you can disagree with this since its just “Me”) I have become quite addicted to sticking to Niagari for anything outside of traditional stuff. When playing with a guitarist (or any other instrument for that matter). My approach is simply to find out what key the song is in. If the key is “A” I tune the ichi no ito to A (A-E-A in niagari) and play naturally with the resonance of that key carrying me forward. If the next song is in “D”. I simply adjust the whole Shamisen up to D (D-A-D in niagari). And continue like this anytime the key changes.
A question there Kevin - What would you say is the highest key you can tune the tsugaru shamisen without risking any warping of the wood?
Thanks for all the great info. What determines the middle strings tuning? i mean the outer two are are the same cuz its basicaly the begining and end of the scale. Gah i really need to learn more theory
Deshaun,
Again, Kyle Abbott has posted a lot of great info already regarding this but just to reiterate, Ni agari means Roor-fifth-root or more specifically root note for the first string, A fifth up for the “Middle” string and a fourth up to the san no ito (3rd string). This intervalic relationship does indeed make the lowest and highest strings the same note but separated by an octave. By "fifth up"I am talking in terms of scale notes as in 1-2-3-4-5. Or you could think do-re-mi-fa-sol.
Karl,
I think E would be the highest “safe” key. I have never personally tuned higher than that so I can`t say about wood warping but E is definately quite uncomfortable for me in terms of string tension. So needless to say I only
tune to E if I am in a situation where I absolutely have to.
additional note:
Since a lot of guitarists like to Jam in the key of E I have a adopted a little trick…
to play along I tune to Hon choushi and set the outer strings to B.
As in B-E-B. This way the string tension is comfortable enough.
(Sometimes I have to choose comfort over my addiction to Ni Agari)
Well gee i pretty much had the answer already. Thanks for your patience Kevin and you to Kyle.
Cool trick, I’ll definately try it out. Thanks for the answer!