Bastard G Tuning Lesson

I changed the tuning. I sure did. Can you tell? Yeah, we're in what we call, what I call Bastard G. That's the last time I'm gonna say it. The last time I'm gonna say it. We just call it Dub G.

What this is, is open G tuning, except that the high E stays at E. So we got a low D, a G, a D, another G, and your E.

Why I Love This Tuning

This, to me, is one of my favorite tunings because there are so many things you can do in this tuning. I came to this tuning thinking I invented it, but I was wrong. Some guys invented it well before me. I found it out of necessity because I was playing in the key of G and was using this form.

Then I would have to go here and couldn't get a groove with that. I said, "Man, I gotta find some way to get the groove happening in G without capoing and playing in E," because I wanted that lower-sounding G.

Understanding the Tuning

Think about playing in G almost like an electric guitar player with the first four strings in regular tuning and the bottom two being the only ones changed. This means you can play like B.B. King.

Let me slow that down because that's a lot fast. All these notes are available for you.

When we get down here to the strings that we changed, we go to the B flat, open G, F, G, D. There you go. That's Bastard G.

Right Hand Groove

Now, I'm going to ask you to focus in on the right hand because I really have a hard time explaining what this is. There's a lot going on, but I know it's coming from this field here.

I'm slapping, and I'm just going to let the strings stay open even though they sound. You can watch what my right hand is doing. Then I pinch with my picking finger again.

Hear that rhythm? That's what I'm trying to do: get rhythm.

What I'm doing is sliding up here on what is called the tritone. Get that groove. I'm between two chords, a C7 and a G7, and then I'm hitting this B flat on the G.

Establishing the Groove

That's what's happening in the left hand, right hand, slap it, and pick it.

Once I got this groove established, I'm gonna play a lead on it. Now, I'm just using all I'm doing here is using this note, this note, this note, this note, and making melody and using rhythm.

Now, I'm gonna hit a chord. Hear that one? All I did was bar up here on the third fret.

There's so much you can do right down in the bottom part of this guitar. Within this tuning, you can also slide. Get this sound. Hear that? I still got my thumb working!

Then I move on up to the F on the E string.

Combining Ideas

Remember that organ lick we did in the key of E? We can do it here too. Check.

Now, that's the dynamic again, double stopping. One chord. We're working, man. I'm gonna do it again. Listen.

I know y'all can't see this or not, but we got some guys here that are shooting it. Their heads are moving, they're going like, "Mm." Because that's a groove. That's what this music's about, getting that groove down.

Exploring Octaves

Now, remember those octaves we talked about? Check this out. We're gonna slide up here to the... let me see... 3, 5, 7. Yeah, we're gonna go up to the 8th fret.

Gonna do an inside octave, like a Benson octave, but we're gonna change the shape. Woo. I gotta show that to you.

See this here? This is what this is. We had the octave before like that, right? When we were down here with the inside Benson octave.

But now, since we're up at this one, we're gonna move here like this. We're gonna sneak this note in.

Finalizing the Sound

This note goes in, so we get the B flat and the F, the A and the E, the G and the D. Now we put this with the groove. Oh, it's happening.

Let me do it one more time to ensure you got it. See how that sounds? Yeah, yeah. Now we'll put the groove on it.

Listen, just that one chord. Of course, I'm working a little bit, but y'all can pick that up.

You just got that technology to use. Now I'm gonna hit that chord. Hit those octaves like that. Can we do it in another place? Yeah, listen.

What was that? I'm gonna show you. That was the Benson octave.

Connecting the Neck

Remember I told you that the top four strings are in the same tuning as if we were in regular tuning. So that means that's got to be available.

You can use this, this, this. You can also use this, this, and this. And if you really want to be a little bit adventurous, you can go...

So you got a real good groove. You can do a lot with just these few notes and few octaves, setting up the groove and playing what you hear in your head.

The right notes, again, are not the notes that you think somebody wants you to play or that you think you should play. The right notes are the ones you hear in your head.

Musically, if I kept this groove here and all I play is this, you can hear my feet, I'm sure. But that's all I'm playing.

The Feel of The Groove

That sounds good though, don't it? Because I'm using that tomato theory and dynamics. See, that's good.

Now, if what you hear is this, they're both good, one's not better because there are more notes.

No, man, the old blues guys didn't like a lot of notes. They said, "You gotta say less; you gotta say more with less. And don't play so much. Just take your time."

But if you're feeling, if you hear it, and you sing it, you play it. But if you don't hear it, don't play it. That means the music's always gonna have the groove and you're gonna be grooving with it.

Wrapping Up with Bastard G

So let's rock a little bit here. We get this Bastard G tuning. We'll do it in a one-chord groove and then we'll put 12 bars on it.

Why not? That adds a little continuity to the thing. It'll sound like this.

Now I'm gonna change the tempo. I went back to that other one. I'm gonna show you where else you can go on this thing.

Let's go up here. Now, this is almost like a killer lick, Howlin' Wolf.

Listen, I wasn't even planning on doing that, but that just happened.

Yeah, it's a good groove, isn't it?

Let me do that again. There it is. What is this? All this is, is we're taking this D7 shape and we're sliding all the way up here to the 3, 5, 7 frets. And then we're going...

That's all it is. But we keep the groove on the bottom.

Closing Thoughts

What else can you do? Well, if this one is available, just like we talked about in E, this has gotta be available too.

And if that's available, then this has gotta be available too. Because what we're doing is we are connecting this part of the neck to this part of the neck.

And again, like we've been talking about through this DVD, we're making this neck come down to one instead of three.

Three distinct parts. We're trying to make it one so that when you look at this neck, you go, "One, one position."

No matter what tuning you're in, no matter if you're in bastard G or if you're in A or you're in E or whatever tuning, as long as you think, "Man, I'm gonna put this in one position."

Alright, so we talked a little bit about what we can have happen here on a I chord. How about if we add the IV chord?

Available Chords

A couple of chords you can use. Here's a good one. Notice I got the bottom G happening, but since I have the C, the C up here, the B flat, and I got the E, it's a C7 chord.

The old blues guys used to take this finger, put it down here and do the thing that went... Give this kind of move like a C7, work it like that.

That's available too, but you gotta be a little bit careful because that's the seventh in the root.

Final Chords Presentation

Let's talk about the chords available for you if you were to play a 12 bar in Bastard G.

• Here's your G.
• Here's your G7.
• Your C again is a partial C chord here.

Since we don't have the root down on this C here, we don't have the root there. We got the seventh there.

We gotta be careful with that. But if you sneak this finger in, you got the seventh here. And that's a pretty good sound in C chord for you down in the lower part.

Then you use this chord, which is the same as an open G really but with this E on top.

Well, now you got a nine. And if you put the F, if you borrow over here, you got this kinda chord and that's your three chords in the middle part of the neck.

Let's go up to the middle part of the neck.

Now up here we can get this one, which is a good one. We can also use this as a C. And here's a D.

And then we can use this G too, right? So these are all available for you, right?

And up here we can use this one, right? To this one, to this D.

Of course, the G, which we can use like this.

They all sounded pretty sweet because I'm using just the triads. But you can dirty them up a little bit.

Conclusion with a Song

If you play it like this, there's the C, and here's the G. See what I'm saying there?

Let's go to the C over here. I'm not just hitting those notes straight.

Visit with them, fool with them. Let them roll like this.

Now you're D.

Now, I didn't explain that D, but I figure you know that because I said, if one's available, another's available.

And we already know that this is a C. So if you go up here, well, man, that's got to be the D.

Now we're gonna roll up here like this. Here's one for you, boy. Doesn't that sound good, huh?

Yeah, that sounds good, too. We're 12-bar-ing here in Bastard G. Now we go down here to this low five, hit the four, turn around.

Ending now, get it?

Final Performance

Then we got it like that. Now, what I'm going to do now is close this segment off in Bastard G with a song of mine called "The Big City Woman."

She talks so much she makes me tired. And it's gonna sound just like this.

I hope you all will enjoy it!