His guitar is really out of tune during Frontier in the bootleg recording. He mentioned during the sound check that he has to tune way down on the National he’s playing, which has a short scale and was often difficult to dial in anyway. Maybe Frontier had some one-off tuning he came up with that proved to be problematic using live. I imagine that put him off trying to play it again on the tour and then he just drifted away from it since there were always other songs to play.
That's a very good point, Keith. In fact, Hiroshi Suda - our CW whisperer - commented in the ATCW group post I linked to that he had to use " D'Addario 11-49 Nickel Wound strings because the tuning was so low: A D A C# E A He said the strings were "loose like rubber bands." You're also right about it being a one-off tuning. Another guitarist identified Frontier as using what he called "Tuning Pattern: C - Intervals: 0-5-0-4-7-0." Combined with the A D A C# E A, Frontier is the only song in Whitley's catalog that uses this combination. I know nothing about any of this, so I don't understand what it all means. But your point is a stronger explanation than mine was for Chris refusing to play the song again. May I share your comment as a Note updating the post to reflect your point?
That tuning is in a bit of a musical no man's land as far as guitar is concerned 😳
I always liked Frontier, but given how he did it in the studio, he'd have had to have a separate guitar tuned just for that song and I'm sure it wasn't worth it to him to do that.
Another excellent point! I'm very grateful that musicians such as you and Keith point out things that zoom right over my head; not being a musician myself, I can't make points that I don't see. Thanks for opening my eyes.
His guitar is really out of tune during Frontier in the bootleg recording. He mentioned during the sound check that he has to tune way down on the National he’s playing, which has a short scale and was often difficult to dial in anyway. Maybe Frontier had some one-off tuning he came up with that proved to be problematic using live. I imagine that put him off trying to play it again on the tour and then he just drifted away from it since there were always other songs to play.
That's a very good point, Keith. In fact, Hiroshi Suda - our CW whisperer - commented in the ATCW group post I linked to that he had to use " D'Addario 11-49 Nickel Wound strings because the tuning was so low: A D A C# E A He said the strings were "loose like rubber bands." You're also right about it being a one-off tuning. Another guitarist identified Frontier as using what he called "Tuning Pattern: C - Intervals: 0-5-0-4-7-0." Combined with the A D A C# E A, Frontier is the only song in Whitley's catalog that uses this combination. I know nothing about any of this, so I don't understand what it all means. But your point is a stronger explanation than mine was for Chris refusing to play the song again. May I share your comment as a Note updating the post to reflect your point?
That tuning is in a bit of a musical no man's land as far as guitar is concerned 😳
I always liked Frontier, but given how he did it in the studio, he'd have had to have a separate guitar tuned just for that song and I'm sure it wasn't worth it to him to do that.
Another excellent point! I'm very grateful that musicians such as you and Keith point out things that zoom right over my head; not being a musician myself, I can't make points that I don't see. Thanks for opening my eyes.
Of course!
Thank you!