Here's the Thing! 29/02/24

Nick Drake's “Pink Moon” — C G C F C E Guitar Tuning

Here’s the Thing!

Let's leap straight to the point!

“Pink Moon” — C G C F C E Tuning

Nick Drake guitar tunings!

Well, I would guess that that's enough subject matter for a not-so-small book.

If I recall correctly, on his records, he used at least (at VERY least) half a dozen or so standard-ish folk/blues tunings, as well as several unique (to him) open tunings.

Nick Drake died tragically in 1974, aged 26, probably suicide by overdose of prescription antidepressants. He had a long history of mental health issues and depression. At the time of his death, he had recorded three albums (whilst signed to Chris Blackwell’s Island Records), which had sold much less than 5,000 copies, perhaps just over 4,000 in total. Commercially his music had flopped. And frankly, up until the time he died, most music critics simply didn’t know what to make of him.

His friend, the musician Robin Frederick, summed up the confusion about Drake’s almost revelationary musicality.

“Thinking what’s important about Nick Drake is his dark romanticism is like thinking what’s important about Brian Wilson is surfing. It’s missing the point.”

Although his music remained available during the 70s — and apparently influenced up-and-coming musicians, including Robert Smith of the Cure, Paul Weller of the Jam, R.E.M’s Peter Buck, and Kate Bush — total album sales still never reached more than around 6,000 copies.

Then in 1999 — twenty-five years after his death — sales of Drake’s albums jumped almost instantly to around 75,000 copies due to “Pink Moon” (the titular track of Nick Drake’s third and final album, released in 1972) being used for a now iconic Volkswagon Cabrio commercial.

For me, the song “Pink Moon” encapsulates the deeply complex simplicity of Nick Drake’s songwriting genius. In fact the whole of his third and final album “Pink Moon” seems to be stripped back to the raw basics, just a singer-songwriter and his guitar (and a bit of piano, and a sprinkle of rural sound effects). The entire eleven-song album was recorded and mixed during two days, in two late-night recording sessions.

If you were to attempt to play the chord voicings of the song “Pink Moon” without altering the guitar tuning from standard tuning (E A D G B E) — well, I think you’d probably struggle, and for sure a huge amount of the low dark chunky tonal colouration would simply be lost.

However with your guitar tuned the way Nick Drake tuned his guitar for this song, you’d probably only need to learn just seven very simple chords¹ — four of them are more or less just one-finger barre-chords, two are just two fingers, and the final chord is all six strings open. It’s simple and economical to play. Yet the chord voicings are so rich and complex. How Nick Drake initially arrived at this guitar tuning (which is widely attributed as being unique to him), that facilitated the simplicity of these chord shapes, is the million-dollar question.

“Pink Moon” — C G C F C E Tuning

So what is the unique tuning Nick Drake used on his song “Pink Moon”?

The tuth is that there is some debate about excatly how he tuned the guitar for the 1971 studio recording, however it’s widely agreed that the tuning was:

• C G C F C E (low to high), with a capo on the second frett. So the 6th, 5th, 4th and 3rd strings tuned down, the 2nd string tuned up, and the 1st string untouched.

Another possability is that the guitar was tuned D A D G D F#, with no capo — although tuning the 2nd string up from B to D (a wholetone-and-a-half) is not the greatest idea on some guitars!

When using such a drastic open tuning (just for example,to achieve C G C F C E the sixth-string drops two wholetones) a lot can depend on what guage strings you use, and how stable the neck of your guitar is (dropping the tuning this much significantly reduces the string tension, so the neck can flatten considerably). There are other tuning options that may reduce the impact — one great one is outlined here.

In case you’d like to further explore Nick Drake’s music, and his use of alternative tunings, to get you started here are some useful resources…

• Guitar Tuner Tuning Database

• NickDrakeTabs.co.uk

• Warren Allen's Encyclopedia of Alternate Guitar Tunings

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Please note: I have another infotainment channel on Substack, called Unleashed & Unlimited, where I post podcasts, articles and content unrelated to music.🖋🎥🎙

1. I’ve seen very many chord charts and tabs for this song online. Please be aware many of them are simply terrible and very inaccurate! Also, please be aware that I am not suggesting that the seven-chord version I know is definitive. Here is a very good tab.