shinksma
What? I get a title?
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2014
- Messages
- 5,322
I went to a store that had one and sat down and played an open B for 20 mins, and knew right then and there that I would never write another song that wasn’t in the key of B if I bought it.
I have had a couple of 7 string guitars. Its only worth it if you are going to use the full range of the guitar. If you just want to riff in B standard you can just buy heavier strings and a bit of a setup.
I've had a couple of seven stringers for years - I got my SE CU-24-7 for Christmas back in 2014 (I had to search the forums - geez, has it been 8 years since I got that?). Got the SVN in July 2018. I definitely fell into that "everything is a djenty riff in B" trapdoor for the longest time.I liked the 7 string when I had it for the guitar music theory aspect/pattern of it with extended cords. It was cool and allowed me to riff a bit lower in the baritone range.
Then suddenly, earlier this year, my brain clicked, and I "discovered" how to map the 6-string fretboard to the 7-string variant, and I could come up with a riff in any key and leverage the lower string as needed, incorporating it into partial chords structures or some noodly lead break stuff.
I think what helped was getting a Mandola for Christmas a couple of years ago, which is a Mandolin (GDAE) but tuned a fifth down (CGDA) - so basically, the lower string is "down one", like a baritone guitar (which I also have a couple). I finally started to suss out how to map those tuning earlier this year, vs just playing "rote patterns".
Getting an 8-string recently has helped cement some of that "extended mapping".