Today, most artists engage in creative activities by studying various instruments or utilizing diverse software and hardware to express their unique artistic personalities. The guitar, serving as both a melodic and harmonic instrument and widely used ...
Today, most artists engage in creative activities by studying various instruments or utilizing diverse software and hardware to express their unique artistic personalities. The guitar, serving as both a melodic and harmonic instrument and widely used across genres, employs the standard tuning [E2-A2-D3-G3-B3-E4]. To deviate from standard tuning makes a technical challenge and practice. Through alternate tunings, artists have the opportunity to reevaluate their knowledge of familiar instruments, explore new playing styles, and enhance their technical skills, ultimately creating novel sounds and establishing their identity as creators. Previous research on alternate tunings has been limited to methods for solo fingerstyle performances, leaving a gap in the perspective of pop music, where guitars have been used indiscriminately since the 1960s.
This paper theoretically analyzes the techniques of alternate guitar tunings and examines the role of the guitar in pop music. It introduces pop artists who use alternate tunings for their individuality and creative musical expression, with a focus on the distinctive features of guitar alternate tunings in pop music, particularly within Coldplay's music. The paper investigates how alternate tunings compensate for the limited range of the guitar in standard tuning, exploring differences through guitar tablatures and chord diagrams. By extracting the characteristics of alternate tunings, such as the use of open-string drones, pedal points with open strings, the combination of open-string chords and melodies, and the convenience of playing techniques, the analysis reveals how these aspects manifest in Coldplay's music.
The analysis demonstrates that Coldplay's music features a variety of alternate tunings, often unconventional, suggesting that the utilization of alternate tunings played a significant role in shaping the direction of composition and arrangement from the creative process. The diverse forms of guitar performance through alternate tunings play a crucial role in shaping the direction of music genres and arrangements, enhancing the competitive edge of guitar players. This serves as a catalyst for self-perceived changes in musical expression, encouraging artists to break free from conventions, challenge established norms, and contribute to both their development as performers and the strengthening of compositional skills. Through this study, I hope that many artists reflect on and advance their understanding of performance, contributing to the music creation.
Keywords : Guitar, Alternate Tunings, Same Note on Different String, Pop Music, Coldplay