For me, once I’m playing it’s almost entirely muscle memory. Writing or learning, the tuning doesn’t matter at all it’s just developing that muscle memory. The

For me, once I’m playing it’s almost entirely muscle memory. Writing or learning, the tuning doesn’t matter at all it’s just developing that muscle memory. The thing nonstandard tunings does for me is it gives me a base state to work from that lets me use patterns and techniques suited to it. Drop D is very good for bass-heavy fifth chord stuff. CGD--- is really good for fingerstyle techniques. Other weirder tunings like some used by Michael Hedges let you rethink whole chord relationships.