Soundgarden · Down on the Upside · song 1
Pretty Noose tuning.
Pretty Noose (Soundgarden, 1996) is in C2 G2 C3 G3 G3 E4 at concert pitch (A 440), measured by TuneLit from the record.
Measured by TuneLit
At concert pitch
Measured on this song itself.
Soundgarden · Down on the Upside · 1996
About Pretty Noose
The opening track and first single from Down on the Upside (1996), written by Chris Cornell around a wah-wah riff that Kim Thayil plays. It is in C G C G G E, the tuning Ben Shepherd introduced to the band with Head Down two years earlier; Thayil was writing in it a lot at the time and calls it full of droning strings and unisons. The riff sits low in the neck, so the open strings keep ringing between the notes.
TuneLit measured Down on the Upside at concert pitch, and Pretty Noose sits within a few cents of it, so Tune uses A 440. The audio check confirms its low C.
Four strings move from standard, and two of them, strings 6 and 2, drop a major third, which leaves them slack. Tune the low strings first, then string 2 to the G of string 3, then go round all six once more. A rocking wah exaggerates any tuning error, so a guitar that is slightly out sounds worse here than on a clean song.
Tip: With the wah off, play the riff's open strings against the record's intro and fix the tuning before you add the pedal.
Step by step
Tune your guitar like the record
- Tap Tune like this: the tuner switches to C2 G2 C3 G3 G3 E4, the notes Pretty Noose was recorded in.
- From the album's E Standard: String 6 down 4 half steps (E → C), String 5 down a whole step (A → G), String 4 down a whole step (D → C), String 2 down 4 half steps (B → G); the other strings stay.
- Turn String 6 to String 1 until each shows ✓ in tune. Pretty Noose sits at concert pitch on the record, so the tuner stays at A 440.
- Then play Pretty Noose 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 Pretty Noose instead. Add your own copy, for example from your CD (it never leaves your device); the link already says the song is in C2 G2 C3 G3 G3 E4. Choose C2 G2 C3 G3 G3 E4 at A 440 and Pretty Noose moves down 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 Pretty Noose in?
C2 G2 C3 G3 G3 E4: C G C G G E, low to high, at the pitch TuneLit measured on the record.