Fellow musicians, just found out the most random factoid:
Lou Reed got that low, droning guitar sound by using what he called “Ostrich tuning.” He invented it on the song Ostrich by his pre/proto-Velvet Underground band, The Primitives. He tuned all 6 strings to the same note: D.
For the detailed history of the Ostrich tuning and technical details (X) And some fun articles from Stereogum (X) and JamBase (X).
This may be a big leap, but this darkly atmospheric tuning reminds me of Morphine’s Mark Sandman, who famously played a two-string (only 2!) slide bass (slide bass!). Fuuuuuuck. That is some rumble right there. They named it the Sandman in honor of his sound.
Some technical details on the Sandman: “There's a lot of misconceptions about Sandman's tuning, people usually say it's GD - Tune the A down and keep the D as it is. But it's not that. It's DA - tune the G up to make an open tuning. Sandman also used a meaty slide to get that unique sound.” (X)
So there you go, the ostrich and the sandman.
