F#F#F#F#EB

Also known as GbGbGbGbEB, this is a Sonic Youth tuning. You can tell because it seems to make no sense whatsoever. The EB and the 1st and 2nd strings seems strange, when BE would be more usual, but when I was working out the chords I found that EB works a lot better. You can swap the strings around rather than detuning them, but I just tuned down. The two sets of F# or Gbs are in two different octaves, with the two low F#s being 8 notes lower than the two higher. Open, it forms an E sustained 2nd or a B sustained 4th, not F#. I call it Open Bsus.

Below are a couple of very small Mp3 example of these chords. In the clean version I've used F#no3, A6, E, Esus4 and the E shape played higher up the fretboard. The distorted version is just the higher three F# strings played open and barred at various frets, mostly 3rd (A one-note 'chord') and 5th (B).

F#F#F#F#EB clean
F#F#F#F#EB distorted

With this tuning, I've kept to the high strings for chords, and let the low F#s ring out. It helps not to stress the open notes too much, unless you want the chords to sound more dischordant. F#no3 is a very, very big powerchord with five root notes (F#) and only one fifth note (Db), giving it an Indian, sitary sound.

Two the two Ab7 chords are really the same chord, but with the 3rd string played open or at the sixth fret - played open, the chord has no third, hence Ab7no3.

The Bsus4 chord here also has a third, making it sound a bit cooler. Play the Bmajsus4 with your thumb.

Two very different ways of playing D: the second 000323 chord sounds a little dischordant, but it has the root, third and fifth of the scale so it's definitely D major.

This E major is my favourite chord in F#, because while it's completely bizarre (it has the 3rd note on four strings, which is odd) it still sounds like an E - plus it's played with the thumb. For some reason Eadd9 chords are easy to find in Open Bsus, so here's three of them.

These chord names with worked out using the Guitar Chord Name Finder.
These chord charts are freely distributable. If you use them on your site, then please link back to me at www.daydreamnation.co.uk/expressway.
Download the Full F#F#F#F#EB Chord chart with all the chords on one page.
 

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