Best Of My Love (question for guitarists)

[chaim]

If I remember correctly, Glenn has said that Joni Mitchell showed him a guitar tuning, and with the new tuning he started composing Best Of My Love. But as far as I know the acoustic guitars in Best Of My Love are in standard tuning. This has puzzled me for years. Did Glenn come up with the chord progression in this different tuning and then adapt it to the standard tuning afterwards? Or is Glenn's acoustic in some weird tuning in the original, although it can easily be played in standard tuning? What was the tuning?

[Prettymaid]

Chaim, you ask the best questions! Wish I could help, but I'm curious to hear the answer.

[UndertheWire]

I'm not a guitarist but I offer you this, which might explain why it ended up as more standard tuning:

GLENN: I was playing acoustic guitar one afternoon in Laurel Canyon, and I was trying to figure out a tuning that Joni Mitchell had shown me a couple of days earlier. I got lost and ended up with the guitar tuning for what would later turn out to be "The Best of My Love."
https://eaglesonlinecentral.com/eagles/verybest/linernotes.htm

[chaim]

I'm not a guitarist but I offer you this, which might explain why it ended up as more standard tuning:

https://eaglesonlinecentral.com/eagles/verybest/linernotes.htm

That's the quote I was talking about! Thanks. So it sounds like - although it was not the tuning Joni showed Glenn - it was still something other than the standard tuning. But on the record it sounds like the standard tuning. From what I've seen they've always played in standard tuning live, too.

[sodascouts]

Maybe he got so confused trying to find the new tuning that he reverted back to standard tuning to try to get his bearings, and then we got those lovely chords that drive "Best of My Love."

[shunlvswx]

I'm lost. I don't know what standard tuning is.

[Prettymaid]

Isn't standard tuning the 'my dog has fleas' tuning? Lol!

[chaim]

I'm lost. I don't know what standard tuning is.

The "normal" way to tune a guitar (E, A, D, G, B, E). Joni Mitchell used an awful lot of different tunings, and I can't understand how she could remember how to play all those songs. When you play in standard tuning, it's easier to remember a song. You can go, "I think this chord was an E minor seventh and the next one was a G seventh" and so on. But when you use a different tuning for every song, you really have to remember how to finger the chords.

Why different tunings?

Well, it can help you come up with songs you wouldn't otherwise come up with, as you place your fingers in different positions and see how it sounds. Also, it's easier to add various extra notes to the chords with different tunings - "C(add9)" chords and the like. It really brings "extra color" to the chords.
Sometimes you may want a tuning where all the open strings produce a chord. When you strum, it's nice to get that open string "drone".

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Thanks for the explanation, chaim. Even though I could've never explained it like you did, your post confirmed that I did have a little understanding of what standard tuning is.

[Scarlet Sun]

Joni Mitchell used an awful lot of different tunings, and I can't understand how she could remember how to play all those songs
And I don't know how she through her solo gigs in the early days without 20 extra guitars on hand. She must have really been good at patter with all that retuning she had to do

[WalshFan88]

My way of remembering standard A440 tuning when I started playing was remembering this:

Eddie
Ate
Dynamite
Good
Bye
Eddie

It worked - lol!

I'm pretty sure TBOML is in standard tuning live and on the record. That doesn't mean he didn't come up with the riff in another tuning. It sure sounds like standard to me.

[thelastresort]

The Washington 1977 version that accompanies the HOTE DVD boxset sounds a bit more 'tinny' than any other version I've heard, it sounds a lot more rigid and tight than I've heard it elsewhere: could that have been a random tuning on that day just the sound recording equipment from that night?