Radiohead · The Bends · song 12
Street Spirit (Fade Out) tuning.
Street Spirit (Fade Out) (Radiohead, 1995) is in E Standard, about 23 cents flat (A ≈ 434), measured by TuneLit from the record.
Measured by TuneLit
23 ¢ flat
Measured on this song itself: Tune moves every string −23 ¢.
Radiohead · The Bends · 1995
About Street Spirit (Fade Out)
The closing track and fifth single of The Bends (1995), and the band's first UK top-five hit. The arpeggio Thom Yorke wrote is played by Ed O'Brien (Wikipedia) in standard tuning, a repeating pattern that lets the open strings ring against fretted notes, while Jonny Greenwood plays a harmony line over it with a capo at the 12th fret, as The King of Gear and the Songsterr tab have it.
Here the record goes the opposite way from the rest of the album. The 2016 XL LP of The Bends sits about 16 ¢ sharp, but Street Spirit reads about 23 ¢ flat (A ≈ 434.2), almost 40 ¢ below the songs before it. Tune sets standard tuning 23 ¢ down; on a CD, which this LP outruns by about 0.45 %, expect nearer 31 ¢ down. TuneLit's semitone check agrees that the low string is an E.
Arpeggios expose tuning more than strumming does, because each string rings on its own, so a guitar left at the album's +16 ¢ sounds clearly wrong against this song. Retune all six strings before you start rather than nudging one or two, and check the open strings against the first bars. For Jonny's harmony part, put a capo at the 12th fret; the strings stay in standard tuning, and the capo needs a recheck once it is on.
Tip: Tune all six strings 23 ¢ down and check them against the first bars of the arpeggio.
Step by step
Tune your guitar like the record
- Tap Tune like this: the tuner switches to E Standard, every string −23 ¢, the notes Street Spirit (Fade Out) was recorded in.
- Turn String 6 to String 1 until each shows ✓ in tune. Street Spirit (Fade Out) sits 23 cents flat on the record: at A 440 your guitar would sound that much sharp against it, which Tune already corrects.
- Then play Street Spirit (Fade Out) 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 Street Spirit (Fade Out) 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 −23 ¢. Choose E Standard at A 440 and Street Spirit (Fade Out) moves up 23 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 Street Spirit (Fade Out) in?
E Standard −23 ¢: E A D G B E, low to high, at the pitch TuneLit measured on the record.