Mooh wrote:
"I like Robert Fripp's New Standard (CGDAEG), though the first string requires a little getting used to."

Why do you like it? I'm not questioning it, just wondering what its advantages are. I suppose one would need a combination of strings with different tensions?

Mooh wrote:
"Better for me, a number of what I call 4/5 (DGDGDG, CFCFCF) and 5/4 (GDGDGD) tunings which I prefer for the one finger "power chords" on any pair or more strings, suitability to slide, the ease of chord extensions, and the way melodies appear with very mandolin like fingerings. Like many tunings, they require some string guage experiments."

I understand about wanting to have a tuning that's identical or similar to that of an instrument one already plays. It seems there are 6-string banjos that can be tuned like guitars.

Tunings are certainly a subject where one can never reach the bottom. I recently looked up pedal-steel guitars and tunings and systems of how the pedals work ("copedents") can get quite complicated. Apart from getting a low D, it seems the main use is what you say; making it possible to slide (and making it possible to play a chord on the open strings, which is another way of saying the same thing). From what I've read and heard and the printed music I've seen, this works best on music that doesn't use too many chords. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I've improved quite a bit in the past year or so and I now find that I can do more with fewer chords.

Non-standard tunings, don't really suit the way I like to play most of the time. I only practice the Renaissance tuning because of the written music that uses it. What I'd really like is more instruments.

Several years ago, I bought some harmonicas; a chromatic and several diatonics. I've started playing them again after not having touched them for years. I find the diatonics frustrating because of the missing notes, but it is possible to play them at the same time as the guitar (only one at a time though!). I'm finding that it's not that easy to play single-note passages this way (which is what I want to play), but it's quite addictive. Anyone else do this?