Clinic
Tony McManus - "Taming Altered Tunings"
Friday, October 13, 12:30pm–1:30pm
The Bear Cantina, 295A Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY   See Map

Modern acoustic guitar often involves a bewildering array of non-standard ways of tuning the instrument. Some of these have a long history, some are very new. What I hope to do in the course of this workshop is bring some order to the chaos, to look for patterns and relationships between the tunings so that they can be thought of as families of ideas and not just confusing lists of letters. For example, on the face of it, there’s little obvious connection between DADGAD and CGDGCD. Look a little closer and the intervals between the strings in DADGAD are repeated one string higher in the second tuning- this makes it much more “tame”. We will look at some open tunings where the strings are a chord, alterations of that, tunings where two strings are in unison- a surprisingly useful idea. As an iconic example of a practitioner of altered tunings we can look at a few songs by Joni Mitchell - who HASN’T wanted to play The Circle Game? Lastly, we will have fun!

---

Clinic Information

Instructional Clinics for the 2023 Woodstock Invitational Luthiers Showcase will be posted as they are confirmed.

Clinics cost $40 per person per clinic. Pay at the door with cash or credit card. There is limited space, so advance reservations are recommended. You do not need to buy a pass to the Luthiers Showcase to attend Clinics.

To Reserve Your Seat at a Clinic
Click the button below to send us an email. Include the Subject: "Clinic Reservation". Include which Clinic(s) you wish to attend, your name, email address, and telephone number.

Reserve

Participants should bring their own instruments, tuners, capos, any permitted recording devices, etc. Clinics will be held in the Pavilion of The Bear Cantina (295A Tinker Street, Woodstock, NY 12498), northwest corner of the Bearsville Center complex, steps away from the Bearsville Theater. There will be a free guitar checkroom there for Clinic attendees. No personal instruments are allowed in the Luthiers Showcase Bearsville Theater or Utopia Soundstage exhibition areas.

SPECIAL OFFER: D'Addario Strings Give-Away!

The first 100 people to make Clinic reservations will each receive a free set of D'Addario XS Coated Acoustic Guitar Strings; different gauges to choose from.