New Standard Tuning

Just saving this one for later...

As a fan of rock and roll of the proggie variety I am, like most prog loving guitar players, constantly looking for new ways to steal ideas from Robert Fripp. I stumbled across this yesterday. It's Fripp's New Standard Tuning. From what I've read he started using this in the mid-80's while running the Guitar Craft School. The idea was to take his students and force them to start learning guitar from scratch. I've also read that he's been using it exclusively since then.

Given that I more or less suck on guitar in standard tuning, I have always shunned alternate tunings. I figure I should learn to play the damn instrument the normal way before messing with the tuning. The one exception was the occasional dropped D tuning. I only drop the 6th string to D though, not the 1st. I like being able to bar a root-fifth chord on the three lowest strings, but I also really like being able to hit the open B-E on the higher strings. Call me crazy.

NST (as it's known to the folks in the know) is C-G-D-A-E-G.

Standard tuning is E-A-D-G-B-E. So if we compare the two there are a few things that just jump right out at you. First (for the theory kids in the group) it's almost all perfect 5ths. Second, the lowest string tunes down to a C. In other words, it tunes waaay down. We're talking Dug Pinnick land here. Finally, you can expect to break a lot of 1st and 2nd strings. The 2nd string is tuned to the E the 1st string is normally tuned too, and the 1st string is waaaaay up to a G. If you don't have a really light guage string that sucker will snap off if you breath on it. In fact, from what I've read it should actually be tuned up to a B (a perfect fifth above E), but his Frippness kept it down to G to avoid injury.

I've been looking around for some chord charts in this tuning but I haven't found anything. Anyone out there ever see NST charts?

**ADDENDUM**
Why not combine the fun of HTML5 and King Crimson to give an example of Robert Fripp playing in NST? I wonder which browser this will work on today?



Now that I listen to this, I think most of the guitar playing on this song might be Adrian Belew. Anyway, it's "One Time" from King Crimson's THRAK album.