Green Day · Dookie · song 7
Basket Case tuning.
Basket Case (Green Day, 1994) is in E♭ Standard, about 15 cents sharp (A ≈ 444), measured by TuneLit from the record.
Measured by TuneLit
15 ¢ sharp
The album's value, measured on the CD: Tune moves every string +15 ¢.
Green Day · Dookie · 1994
About Basket Case
Basket Case, the second single from Dookie (1994) and five weeks at number one on the US modern rock chart, is in E♭ major, played with E-shaped chords on a guitar tuned down a half step: E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ B♭ E♭. Billie Joe Armstrong starts alone, strumming the open-position chords that walk down like Pachelbel's Canon, and the band crashes in near the end of the first chorus. The open low string is the song's home note, so the tuning is easy to hear.
Dookie's engineer said the whole album was tuned down to E♭, and every tab agrees. TuneLit measured the CD about 15 cents above E♭ Standard (A ≈ 443.7), and Basket Case sits close to that, at about 11.5 cents. Tune sets E♭ Standard 15 cents up; at a plain A 440 your strings would sound a shade flat under the record. TuneLit's audio check confirms the E♭ low string.
The most-viewed tabs are written in E♭, so the fret numbers look like an E major song. Songsterr also has a version for standard tuning, which moves every chord down a fret to E♭, B♭, Cm and so on, with fewer open strings. Both match the record; the half-step-down version feels the way Billie Joe plays it.
Tip: Tune down to E♭ with the 15-cent offset, then strum the opening chord with Billie Joe's solo intro before the drums arrive.
Step by step
Tune your guitar like the record
- Tap Tune like this: the tuner switches to E♭ Standard, every string +15 ¢, the notes Basket Case was recorded in.
- From E Standard: Every string down a half step. No tuner that knows E♭ Standard? Clamp a capo across fret 1, tune to E Standard as usual, then take it off: every string drops to E♭ Standard. Check each string again afterwards, since a capo pulls the strings a little sharp.
- Turn String 6 to String 1 until each shows ✓ in tune. Basket Case sits 15 cents sharp on the record: at A 440 your guitar would sound that much flat against it, which Tune already corrects.
- Then play Basket Case along with the record: its lowest open note and your String 6 should ring together without a wobble.
Or the other way round
Move the record into your tuning
Rather keep your guitar as it is? Let Play along move Basket Case instead. Add your own copy, for example from your CD (it never leaves your device); the link already says the song is in E♭ Standard +15 ¢. Choose E Standard at A 440 and Basket Case moves up 86 cents, at its own speed. Slow it down or loop a few bars to learn it, and save the result as a WAV file.
Questions
What tuning is Basket Case in?
E♭ Standard +15 ¢: E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ B♭ E♭, low to high, at the pitch TuneLit measured on the record.