Guns N' Roses · Use Your Illusion II · song 1
Civil War tuning.
Civil War (Guns N' Roses, 1991) is in E♭ Standard at concert pitch (A 440), measured by TuneLit from the record.
Measured by TuneLit
At concert pitch
The album's value, measured on the CD.
Guns N' Roses · Use Your Illusion II · 1991
About Civil War
The opening song of Use Your Illusion II (1991), recorded in 1990 and the last Guns N' Roses recording with drummer Steven Adler. It moves from a quiet acoustic intro to heavy electric sections, and both the acoustic and the electric parts are tabbed in E♭ Standard, every string a half step down.
TuneLit measured the Mobile Fidelity gold CD of Use Your Illusion II (UDCD 712) about 3 ¢ flat, which counts as concert pitch, so the album setting is plain E♭ Standard at A 440. Civil War reads a little lower, about 6 ¢ flat, but that is under the 8 ¢ difference TuneLit needs before a song gets its own value, so it shares the album's setting.
If you learned the song from a tab written for E Standard, keep the frets and tune down a half step; TuneLit's audio check hears the open low E♭ where the tabs put it.
It began as an instrumental Slash wrote before the Japanese leg of a tour and became a full song at a sound check in Melbourne, with Axl Rose's lyrics on top; it first came out in 1990 on the charity album Nobody's Child: Romanian Angel Appeal. Slash plays lead and acoustic guitar, Izzy Stradlin rhythm, and Axl whistles When Johnny Comes Marching Home in the intro and outro. Over 7:40 it swings between quiet and loud, so practise changing your touch between the two.
Tip: If your guitar sounds a hair sharp against the acoustic intro at A 440, lower the reference by a hertz or two (about 6 ¢).
Step by step
Tune your guitar like the record
- Tap Tune like this: the tuner switches to E♭ Standard, the notes Civil War 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. Civil War sits at concert pitch on the record, so the tuner stays at A 440.
- Then play Civil War 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 Civil War 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. Choose E Standard at A 440 and Civil War moves up a half step and 3 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 Civil War in?
E♭ Standard: E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ B♭ E♭, low to high, at the pitch TuneLit measured on the record.