Do songs sound OK to you played tuned down a step?

[Big Band Guitar]

If it sounds good to you then it is good.

What I think does not matter.

[cmd612]

Originally Posted by JonPR

I don't have perfect pitch, but I do have the experience of a song in a different key sounding "completely, painfully, wrong" (well maybe not painfully, but definitely uncomfortably).

Interesting point about pitch memory. I have noticed that songs I regularly play sound a bit weird at first if I do something like tune down a half step or put a capo in a different place than usual. I've never noticed it when someone else was playing something in an unusual key, though.

I've always thought of "perfect pitch" as something one either has or doesn't, but maybe it makes more sense to think of it as one extreme in the range of how good individuals' pitch memories are.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by cmd612

Interesting point about pitch memory. I have noticed that songs I regularly play sound a bit weird at first if I do something like tune down a half step or put a capo in a different place than usual. I've never noticed it when someone else was playing something in an unusual key, though.

I've always thought of "perfect pitch" as something one either has or doesn't, but maybe it makes more sense to think of it as one extreme in the range of how good individuals' pitch memories are.

My view too. There's a gulf between pitch memory (however good) and absolute pitch, but I think the latter is just the extreme top end of the same spectrum. It's like 20/20 vision, while the rest of us just see fuzzy. We're still seeing!

[Nymuso]

I am not always aware when someone is down a half, but I can always tell when it's a full step. Whether a given song sounds good in a lower tuning is a function of many things the least of which is, in my opinion, the down tuned guitar.

[Rosewood99]

Originally Posted by Pitar

Weather I'm a listener or player? No. It doesn't matter to me. The music is the same regardless of 1/2 step. That's sort of like asking if a song sounded okay to me capo'd.

If I heard Here Comes The Sun played below the 7th fret at standard pitch I might call foul (or think it) but otherwise I don't get my teeth in a chatter about going 1/2 step down.

My question as about a whole step.

[SunnyDee]

Originally Posted by paulzoom

My question as about a whole step.

To me it does, as long as the strings are heavy enough to handle the lower tension well. If they get floppy, it's not so good.