I am coming to understand the value in having multiple guitars... something else I can thank Eddie Van Halen for.
Because I'm that interested, I've been learning how to play Van Halen's "Dirty Movies" — a track from their Fair
Warning album.
I've loved this song since the album was released. But I didn't appreciate the complexity of the guitar parts
in particular until only recently.
I've been learning it in part thanks to a pair of awesome guitarists who've made YouTube videos. But neither of them
have it quite right: yes, the low E string on the instrument is downtuned a full step — if you have one of Eddie's
guitars (as I do), you can accomplish this very easily using the D-Tuna gadget. Here's what they miss: all of the strings
are downtuned a half step FIRST; THEN the low-E is dropped another full step, to arrive at D♭.
Downtuning everything ½ step puts you in tune with the music as recorded.
Learning this music reminds me of something Eddie said in a 2017 interview with Smithsonian (you can see
the interview on YouTube): "I had to fill in the holes." He's talking about creating a richer sound to make up for,
perhaps, not having another guitarist or some other instrument in the group. His technique is evident in "Dirty Movies" —
there are a few parts where he fills in a few measures here and there. That song will keep a guitarist busy! I just added
another little bit of filler from the recording to my routine tonight and it made things messy for a while. I fully
expect it will until I get it down.
Anyway, here's the value in having multiple guitars: after playing songs like this, I realize that having multiple
instruments is not a vanity thing. Given the tuning my guitar now has, I can't play anything else from my normal "set"
and have it sound right. Almost every other song on my list uses a normal tuning; some may have a ½ step down-
tuning, but the low E string is still a full step higher than what I currently have. Oh, I could pop the D-Tuna back in
and get back to E♭, and that'd give me access to maybe one or two more songs (Bob Seger's "Her Strut" comes to mind).
Having a second guitar that stays in standard tuning would be pretty lovely. I could practice my usual playlist on
one, and switch to the other for whatever I'm working on in an alternative tuning.
It sorta sounds lame as I type it,
considering we're talking about $1,000 instruments here... but a guy can dream, right?
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