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Article: Citizen Cope's Record Year; Local Music Hero Clarence Greenwood Goes National With His Debut CD
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- January 28, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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Anyone trying to fathom the eccentric wonders of Clarence
Greenwood's life and music should probably start with his guitar.
When most people learn the instrument, they tune it to something
called standard tuning and strum all six strings. Not Greenwood. He
ditched the bottom E string because he just wasn't playing it, and
then tuned another, the B string, to B-flat. This is a little like
going to work without a shirt: You can do it, but it will complicate
your life in unexpected ways, and it will freak out a lot of your
colleagues.
For Greenwood, this strange tuning has long limited the number of
people he could play with, since it requires sophistication to
translate the obscure language ...