Alternative Tuning: The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and "Stargazer"

by Lisa Robinson

The music in "Stargazer" sounds Beatlesy and melodic, but  it's worth
noting that many of the songs were written in the "open G tuning" that is
evocative of the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women." Keith Richard's recently drew
the guitar fretboard for me, with an explanation about how he tuned down to
get that sound (and "Stargazer" songwriter Craig Hatkoff now has a copy of
that framed in his study) -- but for the layman, it's still hard to
understand.

What follows is the first part of an interview with "Stargazer" composer
Craig Hatkoff about how he, personally, fell in love with the "open G,"
"alternative" tuning that gave voice to many of the "Stargazer" tunes.


CRAIG HATKOFF:: When I started to learn how to play guitar, I learned the
Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction," "Paint It Black,"  and "Get Off My Cloud" --
which was a little more complicated. Then the Beatles songs, but forget it,
when you're just starting out, nobody can play the Beatles songs.

ROBINSON: What made you want to pick  up the guitar?

HATKOFF:: Probably the first time I even thought about it was after seeing
the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show. And then, it was really a little bit of
the British Invasion -- Paul Revere and the Raiders, then the Beatles
cartoon series which  I loved and the Beatles movies. The idea of playing guitar
and being part of a band was just  mind-blowing.

ROBINSON: So when did open tuning come into the picture for you?

HATKOFF: It's how you learn to play when you don't have any instruction;
when you don't have a mentor, we had to figure it out as we went along. When
you don't have someone teaching you, it's good and it's bad. It's bad because
it takes you much longer to learn things, but it's good because everything
you're doing is experimental. You develop a lot of quirks and peculiarities.

ROBINSON: When did you start to realize what the tuning situation was?

HATKOFF: I had no idea until I met (guitarist,  teacher and "Stargazer"
co-writer) Alan Schwartz that the way he was getting any of those sounds was in
what's called "open G" tuning. It wasn't until finally, when I walked into
Alan Schwartz's one day  that he explained to me what it was.

ROBINSON: So you weren’t even aware of something called open G, or
alternative tuning.

HATKOFF: No.

ROBINSON: I don't know that Keith would even call it that.

HATKOFF: He probably just plays it by ear.

ROBINSON: But he was taking it from Chuck Berry and blues.

HATKOFF: But open G was clearly Keith Richards .

ROBINSON: Well, now we need to talk about real alternative tuning and Bert
Jansch and eastern tunings and Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin.

TO BE CONTINUED