Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

...was on television last night in a small concert setting. She is and always has been amazing. Does anyone know the tuning she was/is using? Her guitar sound was fantastic.

Is she still using the Parker Fly these days?

Yes, it was a Parker. I'm sure it was a very recent concert. She has a very unique way of playing.

Last I heard, she had something like 57 different tunings. Which one were you looking for?! In the past she used a V-Guitar (I'm not sure which model) to do the transposing of her tunings, at least with electric guitar.

I'm new to the forum, so I'm not familiar with the forum's capabilities - otherwise I'd attach a text file of 90+ Joni songs with the altered tunings for each. I assembled the info some time ago from the web. Here's an excerpt that describes her methods:

Many of Joni Mitchell's tunings are based on the traditional D and G tunings. For example, a simple way to visualize the C

tuning is to think of it as the D tuning tuned one step lower. Joni's current favourite tuning -- what she calls the "Canadian"

tuning -- is really just the D tuning with the D (4th) string tuned up a whole tone to E (e.g., "Passion Play"). For other songs

in this tuning, the strings are still tuned the same in relation to each other, but a semitone or a tone lower ("Sunny Sunday",

"Yvette in English"). Don't forget, Joni's voice has lowered over the years, so songs she used to sing in D tuning, for example, may be in C tuning for current live versions.Joni Tunings
Joni Mitchell tunings.txt (7.0 k)