ADJUSTING TO SEVEN-STRING GUITARS

Even before Steve Vai put the seven-string guitar on the map, septuple-stringed instruments were floating around. In the early ‘90s, seven-strings were the domain of shredders like Vai. A few years later, when grunge put shred guitar in mothballs, a few virtuoso players kept the seven-string flag flying, such as Dream Theater’s John Petrucci and Morbid Angel’s Trey Azagthoth.

When seven-string guitar prices bottomed out on the used mark et, the low rumble of Korn returned the instrument to the spotlight, and soon a parade of nu metal bands adopted the seven for their low-tuned riffage. Eventually, many of those players returned to six strings, often in baritone or at least tuned down to C#, C or C .

Today, the seven-string guitar is ubiquitous in metal and progressive rock, and nearly every major (and sub-major) guitar company has had a crack at their own model. But if you’ve never played a seven-stringer before, here are a few tips to help you start.

Generally, the technique for approaching aseven-string guitar is much the same as f or six-string guitar, but it can take a few days for muscle memory to adjust to the additional string and the extra fretboard width that goes with it . Many players find that the easiest way to adjust is to spend a f ew days exploring the lowest two strings by chugging out on low power chord riffs in the standard seven-string tuning, B E A D G B E .

When one goes to play an open chord on the seven-string for the first time, the natural inclination is to place the fingers on the fretboard one string too low, since most players find their bearings relative to the low E string.

If you play a standard E major chord shape one string down on a seven-string, it can sound pretty cataclysmic. However, playing an E major chord while including the low B string as an inversion adds a lot of muscle to this chord. The B string also comes in handy for adding additional heft to an open D chor d: whereas previously the lowest root note available on a standard-tuned

six–string guitar is the open note on the D string, on a seven-string you can hit that D a full oc tave below that, for a powerful, ringing country chord or, by omitting the F# note on the high E string, a brash extended D5 power chord.

Most players use the seven-string primarily to play in lower keys than those available on standard tuned six strings, but the low B can also be employed to simply extend the range of otherwise six stringfocused scales. Because sevenstring guitars have two B strings (and two E strings), any notes that occur on the B string of a six string scale can be directly applied to the low B string too. The minor pentatonic scale sounds extra mean when you drop down below the root note, such as in the key of A when you can go all the way down to E without stepping outside of the regular pentatonic box. It’s a handy trick to have.

In other keys, you can go even further down. This same idea can be applied to other common scale patterns, and it’s a very handy way of easily remembering the notes on the low B string: any note that you already know on the ‘ regular’ B string, you also instinctively know on the low B.

But what if a low B is still not enough? There are no rules about how to tune your seven-string. One fun tuning is G C G C G C B E .

Another is a variant on the Drop D philosophy: A E A D G B E . Another trick can be per formed in regular seven-string tuning. I call this the ‘bulldozer chord,’ and it also works on six-string guitars: play a regular root/fifth power chord starting on the E string – say, a G5 chord starting at the 5th fret.

Instead of doubling the root note on the fifth fret of the D string as many players might, try doubling the fifth instead, an octave below, on the third fret of the low B string. This gives you an extra-thick low end which, when played against a G note on a bass, creates a crushing, super-low-sounding chord.