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In the 60's I got a job as guitarist with a drummer, bass player and steel guitarist in a Mobile, Alabama country/western bar.
They needed help with lead singing.
My first song I ever tried to lead sing was "Crying" by Roy Orbison.
I thought the song was very difficult. I was right.
Any tune by Roy Orbison gets you singing up so high your testacles wind up in your watch pocket.

You do have to learn new chord shapes but they are typically simpler with fewer strings held down (depending on the music) than standard tuning.
Slide guitar goes great with an open E or G tuning.
Pulling a guitar into a whole new tuning takes mucho time - especially with the guitar needing even more time to settle down after a major adjustment and hold a tune.
Pros who play alternate tunings bring extra guitars, either can afford roadies to tune the additional guitars or have the guitars on a multi - stand pre - tuned and ready to go.
It is an imposition on your audience to make then wait and listen while you pull your guitar into anything more complex than a drop D.

Hello Commandomark,                                                          Best I can tell it is a down, down up down, or,  chink chinka chink until you get to the end of a phrase and go chink chinka chink chinka chink chink chink.
Hope this makes some sense.
tooter

Hi Buble,
Your choices with C chord are:
1. Play strings 1 thru 5 and avoid sounding the sixth string.
2. Drop your pinky in the sixth string third fret and get a G tone added underneath.
3. Let the fat edge of your finger deaden and mute the sixth string.

Playing six nights a week in a bar, there are evenings when everything sounds lousy. However on those same nights, people have stopped by and said the band has never sounded better.
Conversely, I have been happy with our sound and had a close friend ask what was wrong with us that night.
Some days we're the windshield and some days we're the bug.
On a bug day we are least qualified to judge our own performance.
Only long experience teaches us what indicators to ignore and what criticisms to take to heart on a life long quest for excellence.
Just hang in there, Sunshine. Tomorrow will be a brighter day.

Thank you, topdown for that inspiring post. Got me thinkin' 'bout the blues. Been playin' 'em down South here for 50 years.
Detman101, alls you got to do to play blues is be blue. Ever been dumped by a sweetheart? Ever been lied to, cheated, ripped off by anybody? Consider even a burned finger, a stumped toe or a rude stranger.
The matter may be so slight as an itchy bug bite. You may be feeling like a good cry but decide to laugh instead.
You don't need to be old to be blue. All you need is any issue - no matter how trivial - it just has to matter to you.
Neil Diamond wrote:
Song sung blue, everybody knows one....
Me and you are subject to, the blues now and then...
Funny thing, you can sing it with a cry in your voice. All at once you get to feelin' good. You simply got no choice.

http://www.guituner.com/

The Cardinals are the cinderella team of the '08-'09 season.
I gotta root for them.
My New Orleans Saints have ripped out my heart and stomped a mudhole in it since 1967. =
There's always next year.

Right you are upyerkilt, folk nights are ever so much more fun than open mike events that mostly exploit generous musicians.
It's so much more fun to sit in a circle in the corner and pass a guitar with other instruments adding in as they can.
Open mike is a scam to get free live music in some pub or restaraunt that doesn't want to pay but charge players full retail for food and beers.
As soon as you need to leave the group and step up on a stage with lights on you and needing to plug up electric to outpace conversation levels, a lot of intimacy is lost. It can still be fun but often it can get to be work.
Even so, I occasionally go play in some to see the local talent and keep my hand in.

A guitar can be most any shape from a flying "V" to a cigar box.
The reason for the most popular guitar shape is to have it feel almost like we're holding a woman. A nice shape if you need to hold it for four or five hours.
My Gibson 330 thin-hollow body, arch top guitar is so comfortable for me since 1968.

Hi Selso
I was being a smart alec but since you asked, my guitars are all antiques like me.
I love 'em and can sound my best on them which some may judge to be really mediocre.
My arsenal:
1960 Gibson 330, 1975 Yamaha dreadnought acoustic, 1999 Martin Backpacker for travel, 1940 King tuba, 1975 Conn tenor trombone,1960 Olds Ambassador trumpet and four P.A. systems to play them through.