Working with What You’ve Got

Is it better to bend something to your will, or to adapt your own behavior to accommodate the thing?

I haven’t changed the strings on my 12-string guitar in almost a year. They have lost elasticity and no longer stay in tune.

The sensible course of action would have been to equip the instrument with a fresh set of strings. But I had read about an alternate tuning in Guitar Player that I was curious to try and thought that now might be a good time to experiment.

I dropped the B string and both E strings a full step to establish what is known as DADGAD tuning. This reduced the tension on half the strings and had the added benefit of forcing me not to rely on familiar shapes and patterns to create melody and harmony.

The alternate tuning has opened my ears to a whole new world of chord voicings and sonic possibilities. It has invigorated my playing and broadened my compositional palette. All because I didn’t feel like changing the strings on my guitar. Of course, I’ll put a fresh set on eventually because, even in DADGAD, the old strings sound terrible. In the meantime, I’ve discovered a new approach to playing guitar.

So, is it better to bend something to your will, or to adapt your own behavior to accommodate the thing? Maybe the answer is, “both.”

On this day…

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