Exploring the Mi-Composé tuning on the guitar!

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, I've 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 I've found in this tuning for both the left and right hand, as well as the open D string. I've 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.

I've put another video on my youtube channel explaining why I chose to play my "Afri-can" guitar for this tutorial, but don't 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!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• guitar
• african guitar
• Musical Tuning
• Exploration
• Guitar Hero
• african
• congolese
• soukous
• mi-composé
• scott shuster
• shuster
• lokassa
• lokassa ya mbongo
• Mr.Will
• sing for the moment
• Mr.Will Music
• Africa
• You
• drumcamp
• gary newland

[sparrowdudu]

Thanks Mr Will. Great job. So clear and well put together. Keep them coming. Two questions: is it just the rhythm guys who sometimes use mi-composé tuning or do some lead soloists use it too? And, other than the mighty Lokassa, which other guitarists favoured it especially? Thanks.

[misterwillguitar]

@sparrowdudu

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!!

[sparrowdudu]

@misterwillguitar I'm wondering if "Mi-solo guitar" is another way of saying rhythm guitar tuned in mi-composé. Just checking the credits on some of my old cd's: Sammy Massamba on Sam Mangwana & The African All Stars' MARIA TEBBO album is listed as having played Mi-solo alongside Syran M'Benza (solo) and Pablo Lubadika & Bopol Mansiamina (rhythm). Mi-solo also credited on tracks such as REVIENS HYPPAU by Zaiko Langa Langa and BANDONA by Nyboma & Kamale Dynamique...

[bolodomindjan]

Many thanks, mistrer Will, you are a good teacher, i will try to put it in pratice

[LordValve]

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...

[griffeboy]

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

[AlanTaylor008]

Don't play the guitar but if I did this is the man I would go to for inspiration and to learn from.

[danmoxon]

haha nice bro

[almightyhannah]

Yay Mr. Will!

[didglesville]

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