question re congolese guitar music

Subject: question re congolese guitar music
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 May 15 - 09:47 AM

is it correct that they tune the guitar dadgbe, but with 6[low e] string a high d drone.

Subject: RE: question re congolese guitar music
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 24 May 15 - 01:06 PM

http://www.museumofworldmusic.com/gui2.html

Subject: RE: question re congolese guitar music
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 May 15 - 01:09 PM

http://www.museumofworldmusic.com/gui2.html
but that is not the congo

Subject: RE: question re congolese guitar music
From: Leadfingers
Date: 24 May 15 - 01:11 PM

Subject: RE: question re congolese guitar music
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 May 15 - 01:34 PM

Back in the 80s during the early WOMAD years I used to know a bit about this..

As I can no longer remember, I'll guess skint African musicians
used whatever spare strings they could get their hands on,
resulting in weird random combinations of octaves & tunings that sounded great
and gradually became a more deliberate established convention...???

I also replace bass strings with treble strings on some guitars..
for a brighter chiming sound.
But only at the moment have one strung in proper Nashville high tuning.

Subject: RE: question re congolese guitar music
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 May 15 - 06:50 PM

good guessers never get married.

Subject: RE: question re congolese guitar music
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 24 May 15 - 08:04 PM

No. That really distinctive guitar style, which is a central part of what tends to be called Soukous and Ndombolo, typified by Zaiko Langa Langa("The Rolling Stones" of Zaire), is played in standard guitar tuning, out of the basic floating closed position chords--which would be the barred "A" fingering, the barred version of the basic "D" fingering, and the floating "F" position--

They tend to play single note arpeggios and pentatonic scales out of those chord positions, and they favor a solid body guitar sound, such as a Strat, with the pickups out of phase.

The leads tend to be brief repetitions of rhythmic phrases, which sound a lot more complicated than the are, because there are always a bunch of other instruments playing other phrases at the same time.

The chord progressions are usually really simple, like I-IV-V, and, surprisingly often, just stay on a single chord.

Not uncommon for the band to play on a single C chord, with one guitar playing out of
this position:

7-6-4-4-4-1

and another playing here:

x-x-x-8-7-7