kate rusby tunings

Subject: kate rusby tunings
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Dec 03 - 02:31 PM

Any body know what guitar tuning she uses and do you have any chords to her songs?

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: michaelr
Date: 04 Dec 03 - 03:16 PM

Mostly Drop-D, I think.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 04 Dec 03 - 03:52 PM

Barnsley Tuning - Ay-Up... ;-)

Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: breezy
Date: 04 Dec 03 - 07:36 PM

When you sing like her does, any old song sounds too good to be that good.

Makes you sick.

a true talent.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: GUEST,G String
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 04:19 AM

Definitely G-string dropped - have I read the question right ?

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: Hamish
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 04:35 AM

Hmmm... when she performs live she doesn't fiddle about with different tunings: she just uses the same one throughout. I reckon it's drop-D. But Breezy's right - it's the voice that's the bizzo. Her guitar isn't that crucial. But with Andy Cutting and hubby John McCusker as the band the overall sound is awesome. Any clever guitar on her CD's is usually supplied by someone else - Ian Carr in the main. And other fretted instrumentation is likely cittern from John.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: mooman
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 05:35 AM

I'm not a big fan of her music (because of the voice and delivery which most other people however like) but know that Kate generally uses double dropped-D tuning, i.e. (D A D G B D). I do think, however, that she has done wonders inturning on a new generation to folk and admire her both for that and her genuineness and sticking to what she believes in.

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: black walnut
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 07:09 AM

Yes. I started playing a lot of songs in DADGBD after finding out that Kate plays in that tuning. It's a D tuning, but I believe she plays a lot of songs in G in that tuning, which is what I've been doing, and it's really nice. I also like that it is so easy to go in and out of DADGAD from double drop D. Not rocket science, but for someone whose main instrument is not guitar, it's expanded my repertoire quite a sum.

~b.w.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: GUEST,Sooz (at work)
Date: 05 Dec 03 - 08:10 AM

The songs and chords are in her Songbook - she has taken the trouble to share them so why not buy a copy?

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: GUEST,Daff
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 04:31 PM

Hi Guys,
I got the songbook today. KR states she uses double dropped D tunings for 'most' of the songs she plays. Well, I had a bash and it's more difficult than I thought - I just can't seem to recreate the sound...
I shall, or course, keep trying.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 05:02 PM

I wonder why you're finding hard? Dropping both E strings to D gives a lovely sound, and it's the Kate Rusby one..

Tune your guitar properly (dropping the D's of course), fret strings 6 and 5 at the 5th fret, and strum.

Is that not a Kate Rusby chord?

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Mar 07 - 08:23 PM

Not too long ago, i was there in a folk club . And someone started doing The Unquiet Grave with that awful lisping affected insipid diction that means invariably they've been inspired by the great white hope of the folk tradition, the Mike Harding Show, and probably The Living Tradition.

You just felt like saying - oh jump in the sodding grave - I'll fill it in - and take the backing group with you.

There were almost tears in my eyes when I remember how Ian Campbell used to deliver that song to the late John Dunkerly's plaintive banjo - talk about the day the music died.

The trouble with the people entrusted with this Living Tradition, and shouting about it is that basically they're all arseholes.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 05:30 AM

WLD - you never said a truer word!

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 06:25 AM

Come on WLD, don't beat about the bush! :-) :-)

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: GUEST,Phillip Malcolm Ddouglas
Date: 16 Mar 07 - 12:05 PM

Hello, anybody please post the chords for the song Jolly Ploughboys?

Thanks,
PMD

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 06:59 AM

Anything sounds great when she plays it. And just a minor point, John McCusker is no longer her husband, their separated she now goes out with Brian Finnigan. I've seen them together and you wouldn't be like that with a friend.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 11:46 AM

double drop d has ben around a lot longer than K Rusby.
noew the really skilful guitarist is the one that can make standard tuning ,sound like modal tunings,it can be done,in E AND A.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: Gulliver
Date: 19 Jun 07 - 08:04 PM

Excuse my ignorance, but what is "Living Tradition"? A band?

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 04:18 AM

living tradition is a magazine.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: Commander Crabbe
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 03:43 PM

PMD

If you want to PM me with a fax number or e-mail I'll send you what I use.

CC

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: Gulliver
Date: 20 Jun 07 - 03:59 PM

The trouble with the people entrusted with this Living Tradition, and shouting about it is that basically they're all arseholes.

I don't understand--how can a magazine do this?

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: GerryMc
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 09:45 AM


Kate Rusby does indeed use double drop D as do many other players. I use it a lot, t'is a good tuning.

There are many other tunings out there, experiment dear people. You might just surprise yerselves

:-)



Gerry :-)

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Jun 07 - 11:53 AM

Gulliver,Living Tradition is a magazine,but on reflection WLD is on about something else.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: GUEST,Black Walnut you are the king
Date: 30 Apr 09 - 10:04 PM

thanks so much - that DADGBD tuning is awesome

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 01 May 09 - 07:49 AM

Always grateful to Kate for being one of the artists that led me into the realm of traditional music.

My daughter and I would compete with each other re finding and sharing music. I came home from work one day excited both because Andie was coming home from uni and because I had heard Rusby's Courted a Sailor on WNRN radio in Charlottesville, VA. I just couldn't wait to tell her about it. But what do you think was playing when walked into the house. Andie's new Kate Rusby CD and that song. Pipped at the post again.

And as Andie was a collector (she liked finding and hearing as many versions of songs as she could) she did not like Rusby's Unquiet Grave either.

I saw Kate in concert at the Rochester (Kent) Sweeps a few years back. I was not disappointed. But I don't buy her CDs any more because I have moved on to ????? (I don't want to say more authentic, because it dismisses Rusby's) music. But maybe that is just what I mean.

Still as said above, it was the likes of her got me interested in the first place and made me and my daughter seek out older recordings of the songs she does.

And that, I think, is a great service to the tradition in itself.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 May 09 - 08:56 AM

yes, one that was suggested on this forum,that I am working on is dgdgae.
I find double drop d handy for d, g and a,and even c,when there is no sub dominant chord, example, Andys Gone with Cattle.
I still like standard and drop d,to provide variety.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 01 May 09 - 09:34 AM

Kate Rusby has a very attractive voice and a naturalness to her that is most charming. She doensn't captivate me in anyway near the way that I've come to find that some folk singers do, but that's purely a personal aesthetic. For as a listener I tend to prefer more strong and potent female vocalists.

VTams reference to Rusby's arrangement of The Unquiet Grave is interesting though, as I have a version of Rusby singing this in a more 'medieaval' style, which is meltingly and moveingly lovely - without the sugar, and IMO far superior to the arrangement presumably composed for a more 'pop' audience. And it's her rendering of *this* version of unquiet grave (also to be found here by Gryphon ) which I now sing myself. Though I haven't heard it anywhere other than the beautiful live recording that a felllow Mudcatter kindly passed on to me.

In light of this, and without wanting to cause a storm, I suspect Kate is perhaps somewhat 'better' than some of the material she puts out...

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 01 May 09 - 09:58 AM

Blast it! 'Mediaeval' Unquiet Grave melody as performed by Gryphon here!

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 01 May 09 - 10:24 AM

I think I have a Dave and Toni Arthur version on audio cassette, which I liked better than the Rusby version.

Now I am remembering Andie correctly. She said she heard another Unquiet Grave by Rusby that she loved that was nothing like the one on her CD. I think she must have heard it on a live radio interview.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: GUEST,mauibob
Date: 17 Sep 18 - 03:04 PM

Watching her play in videos, she seems to often (with the alt tuning) capo at a high fret.

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: GUEST,BT
Date: 16 Dec 21 - 04:52 PM

Hello--i don't think its dropped D--something similar though--time to experiment with various versions of a D tuning--lets figure this out

Subject: RE: kate rusby tunings
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 Dec 21 - 05:18 PM

It's Double-Drop-D. DADGBD.