Heya everyone! I put this video together to share what I know about the "mi-composé tuning for the guitar. Despite it being such a great tuning, Ive not seen much documentation on youtube, so I wanted to contribute as best I can. This tuning is commonly found in "soukous" music, usually played by the rhythm guitar player. I first came across this tuning during my lessons with the great Lokassa Ya Mbongo, where he saw me struggling with certain soukous rhythmic phrases that I had worked out in standard tuning. One explained to me, they all became much easier to play and much more natural as a style. So in the video I just want to outline the advantages Ive found in this tuning for both the left and right hand, as well as the open D string. Ive also put in an exercise based on my tune "sing for the moment" – written in the mi-composé tuning and that you can try for yourself to find out some other elements when playing in this style. Ive put another video on my youtube channel explaining why I chose to play my "Afri-can" guitar for this tutorial, but dont worry – you can tune any guitar to the mi-composé tuning! Thanks as always to the great Lokassa Ya Mbongo for teaching me this great tuning, and of course thanks as always to Mr.Scott Shuster!
Exploring the Mi-Composé tuning on the guitar!
18 thoughts on “Exploring the Mi-Composé tuning on the guitar!”
Posted On in Open Tuning with 18 Comments.
Mr. Will I think your separated twin at birth is a celebrity too here in the US. You gotta search Baron Ambrosia here on youtube.
Merci Mr Will !! Tout devient très simple!
Hey Mr Will. I made that particularly fine ‘Township’ guitar you have there… Lovely to hear it used for its more or less intended purpose. The sound is perfect for soukous. That was a fairly early model. They are a bit different now. By the way on the pickups… they are not humbuckers but handwound single coils. I since split from Township guitars who I manufactured the guitars for but I still make a few a month. Thanks for the soukous lesson. Fantastic.
Thank you Misterwill for this awesome demonstration!
thank you, great job!
Excellent video! Thanks for keeping this style guitar playing alive!
Heya bro
Yeah mi-composé is generally used in the rhythm parts – usually for solo it will be played in standard tuning (for soukous etc). OK Jazz used the tuning for the rhythm parts, Im sure there are others too!!
Many thanks, mistrer Will, you are a good teacher, i will try to put it in pratice
Many thanks, mistrer Will, you are a good teacher, i will try to put it in pratice
Mr Will – I’m a jazz organist; I enjoyed your vid. I’m going to forward the URL to my own guitarist, as I think he’d be interested in it. While it’s not something he could use for a whole night of playing the kind of stuff we do, it might well be useful enough in certain situations to keep a second guitar onstage. A suggestion: while the chorus effect may be "authentic" for this style of playing, I think it makes focussing on the actual pitches a bit more difficult. "Plain" tone may work best…
enjoyed the vid – good to see somebody with talent who doesn’t take themselves too seriously, thanks for taking the time to share this stuff
Don’t play the guitar but if I did this is the man I would go to for inspiration and to learn from.
haha nice bro
Yay Mr. Will!
Brilliant. I haven’t played the ol’ guitar for a long time – this inspired me to dig it out, dust it off, and think about changing that fourth string! Thanks for this most excellent vid Mr. Will and I am liking the Castrol guitar a lot! Happy New Year x
Mr Will is a STAR!
You the man !!!
Nice one Will.
Must try that…Now where did I put that spare set of strings…Hmmmmm
Mr Wil is the man!!! Check him out playing the oil can! Love It!