Ostrich Guitar

rcaz

I was looking through the liner notes for The Velvet Underground & Nico, under the bit where it lists the band members it says:

Lou Reed: Lead Guitar, Ostrich Guitar, Vocal

A bit of wiki-ing later, I found out that ostrich guitar is a guitar where all the strings are tuned to the same note, usually D. I'm just after tuning mine to this, and it's good fun to play around with, anyone here ever use it? Is it a bit of a novelty thing?

Discuss

Karl Hungus

Hang on, all strings tuned to the same note? What does that mean exactly? As in the exact same note, or the same note at different octaves?

Odd.

rcaz

Different octaves, so you don't break any strings, but they're still taught enough to play on. For me, my E and A were tuned to D like you would for Drop D, my D was left normal, G was tuned down to the D string, and B and e were tuned to a higher D again. Three different octaves, unless I got confused during the process, which is a likelihood

Karl Hungus

Bizarre... Doesn't sound like it would be of much use though, what exactly would you do with such a tuning?

Although something I'd love to do with one of my 7 Strings is tune the 3 lowest strings in fifths. So that it'd go from low to high: GDADGBE. That would be interesting as hell.

rcaz

I reckon you could use the Ostrich thing as a good backup for a regularly-tuned guitar (Once it's playing something in D, of course...;) ). I think it sounds really nice, with a bit of time and a slide, I think it'd be pretty cool.

As for the tuning in fifths, isn't that like a cello or a violin?

Karl Hungus

El Pr0n wrote:

As for the tuning in fifths, isn't that like a cello or a violin?

Yep.

Guitars are generally tuned in fourths though.

Lets say playing a regularly tuned guitar, you tune to drop D. The inverval becomes a fifth. So if I were to tune a guitar as I was suggesting, the G D A strings would be in fifths.

rcaz

I know, man

I've been playing around in Ostrich tuning for a while not, it's great fun, everything has a very mysterious feel to it, brilliant for droning riffs, too. Great for any experimental/noise stuff.

fish-head

It's named after a novelty single he released before he put the VU toghether called the Ostrich. The whole droney thing was one of the things that attracted Cale to Reed in the first place.

Frankiestylee

fish-head wrote:

It's named after a novelty single he released before he put the VU toghether called the Ostrich. The whole droney thing was one of the things that attracted Cale to Reed in the first place.

Reading this thread was worth it for that fact. Reeeeally? Cool. Love the aul rock folklore.

rcaz

I concur, nice one, fish-head. Nothin' better than a bit of pointless trivia of a Saturday night...

Maybe that's why I'm on a forum on a Saturday night...

fish-head

Ah sure isn't that we're all here for? Talkin' ****e and wasting time!

rcaz

That's what people get banned for

fish-head

Well string me up and call me Off-Topic-Oscar!

Sorry Feylya. I like Ostriches and guitars, and the combination of the two is especially pleasing.

John

IIRC, there's a nice bit of info in the VU biography Uptight about Lou's exeriments with his gutiars (such as super hotwiring his pickups so they were louder than loud, thus able to get those amazing bursts of white hot noise for his solos on White Light/White Heat, especially "I Heard Her Call My Name").

Ostrich tuning, as fish-head rightly pointed out, was used to get that full, sexy drone going on with Sterling Morrison playing a normally tuned guitar over it. I've messed around with it, fun stuff, especially with a slide.