What guitar tuning did Nick Drake use?
Some late artists leave behind works so impactful that it’s impossible to listen without your mind wandering into a series of “what ifs”. Would their influence have endured without their untimely death? Would their music still inspire such fascination if not coloured by the tragedy of their passing? One artist whose music and life will forever evoke these questions is Nick Drake.
Considering Drake released three albums in quick succession between 1969 and 1972, to have lifelong fans in the likes of Robert Smith, Kate Bush, Peter Buck, Paul Weller, Aimee Mann and even Mackenzie Crook speaks volumes about his significance. His distinctive, surreal, and profoundly melancholic sound is completely singular, putting a new twist on the folk genre.
Composing naturalistic poetry that carried on the lineage of his heroes such as William Blake, William Butler Yeats, and Henry Vaughan, there’s a metaphysical strand that runs throughout Drake’s efforts, but due to the use of natural imagery, symbols and codes, they set him apart from other folk pioneers of his era who were obsessed with fantasy and folklore. Furthermore, as the images included evolved from summer into more autumnal and wintery ones in his later work, reflecting the severe decline in his mental health, his arc and music have a deeply personal essence that also marks him out from the folk crowd, seeing him puncture into a realm that only he inhabits.
Sadly, in his lifetime, outside of his immediate circles and the folk circuit, Drake didn’t secure the devoted audience he has today. His work only found broader acclaim following his tragic 1974 death from an antidepressant overdose at just 26 at his parent’s home. This reality says more about humanity’s inherent parasocial fascination with tragic artists than it does about the real, complex mental health issues of a young man who was undoubtedly one of his generation’s finest and most profound creatives.
Since he has become a cultural hero, people have sought to understand the famously shy artist further and make sense of his heartbreaking and premature death. However, this fixation on his unfortunate passing can often be guilty of overshadowing his brilliance as a musician. We’ve touched on his words being vital to the mix, with his hushed baritone also essential, but arguably, his guitar playing really set him apart. An early innovator of open tunings, this allowed him to reach the emotive and often heavy cluster chords that underpinned his most significant moments.
So, what tuning did Nick Drake use?
Due to Drake’s famously shy nature and the fact that he passed far before his time, the exact tunings he used across his short career were unknown for a long time. It’s only since the proliferation of the internet that some savvy and dedicated fans have been able to share their findings and play his songs note for note in tunings that sound bang on the money.
It’s been found that Drake used CGCFCE for many of his songs, such as ‘Place to Be’, ‘Parasite’, and ‘Hanging on a Star’, and it is heard extensively across Bryter Layter and Pink Moon. Elsewhere, some guitar-playing fans have discovered that he most likely used EBEBEB on ‘Time of No Reply’ and ‘Fly’.
It’s certain that Drake could never have achieved his signature sound in standard tuning, and his autodidactic approach is what led to his obsessive practising of the instrument, night-time experiments with alternative tunings and the distinctive cluster chords that would not have been possible in the traditional EADGBE.
