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Originally Posted by val-holla-ing
maybe it has something to do with tone? certain notes sound better on certain strings on certain frets. if you listened a little harder, maybe you'd take notice that they're not just playing power chords.
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Originally Posted by m^a(t)h
It seems like sonic youths unusual tunings are now only a gimmick to keep them from being considered just "rock". For the most part their songs are very tonal and harmonic. The unususal tunings serve little purpose nowadays. Im saying this because I hate when people talk to me about them and how they heard there tunings are so weird. I mean songs like "shadow of a doubt", "halloween", and "brave men run" take full advantage of the open tunings (along with many other of their earlier works). But alot of their newer stuff is just power chords unecessarily spaced across octaves.
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I suggest that both are, in part, correct. There are a few subtleties which warrant the use of alternate tunings - the subtle variations of timbre, the drone notes, the ocassional dissonant effect of close intervals in the courses. I assume they're still using courses (2 strings the same note) rather than whole chords across the strings (as in Blues/ Folk).
I think there are two separate understandings at play here - the first: Msquiggly lettersAth seems to be alluding to the general structure of the songs. In terms of the general structure, there isn't that much in the last 2 albums (what I've heard of RR so far at least) that sounds like its using any intervals or tonal progressions that are necessarily that far away from the general usage of standard tuning - that is, the tuning seems to have come to define the structure of the song less and less (something you would never say about Evol-era). I wouldn't say there's anything wrong with this
per se, but I would suggest that it is much easier to emulate the more recent albums on standard tuning.
The second understanding is that of emphasis on the minutae of playing - as Val-holla-ing say, the subtleties of timbre and intonation borne of alt. tunings/ stringings. I don't particularly think this is the most important thing - I don't want to argue my case for this. The point is that what one set of people privelege in their appreciation of SY (the tonal structure) is different to what is being priveleged in other appreciators (the subtle minutae).
I should like to add that there is nothing holy about alt tunings - to my mind, Keiji Haino, Masayuji Takayanagi and Derek Bailey (all standard tunings) take the guitar to farther reaches than most, as do (did?) SY, Keith Rowe, Phil Niblock - the creation lies in the imagination of the creator. The majority of rock bands who use alt tunings do so for very little reason - they only end up emulating the 5ths of most rock.
Hmm. There is more to say, but for now I tire of typing.