When playing fingerstyle I very often tune my guitar differently "on spec" in order to facilitate some kind of harmony or phrasing or other. Sometimes these random tunings stay with me, for instance one of my guitars is nearly always tuned EADGAE because when I pick with the banjo "boom-chucka" style the high A and E strings make a nice drone. I think Stanley Jordan always has his high strings as C and F because it evens out the intervals between strings and coming from the piano it helped him at lot. I also play a lot of old lute music on my nylon string with the G tuned down to F#. It's funny really, we have so much potential for variation by tuning our instruments in different ways, but 99% of players stick with the old EADGBE...

Is using an arp "cheating"

 
I thought; is that a silly question or what?.
Faster than the speed of light "YES" went off and without a question mark too. ;)

To me an ARP is Address Resolution Protocol... And you can't make things work on a network without it?

The only thing that ever matters is the final song that people hear.

arp arp arp.....
 
I'm only one person in my 'group...of course I use an Arp!! Plus the other one....

EQ
 With the amount of peoeple on here who play most of the elements that go into their msuic. How do you guys feel about using and arp, is it less authentic then playing it yourself.
ps: give me one of your arp "tricks" you use....

 
If you do it, you are clearly cutting corners in a very unfair way, yes...you are cheating.
 
If, on the other hand, I do it, I am using the subtle advantages of technology to break new ground in the never ending quest for musical expression, and will get an A++ in all the history books for innovation and just plain kewlness.
 
Get ur groove on. Get lost in it. Whatever it takes. Watch whoever is listening. Are they GETTING IT? Can you FEEL it while making THEM FEEL IT, at THE SAME TIME? Are they driving home with the radio off, but still hearing your message, lost in the new and better world YOU turned them on to?
 
If someone who understands tech asks how you did it, do you tell them, or tell them it's classified information....OR...
 
Do you make up some BS to look kewler than you really are?
 
Is George Washington a hero of humanity's endless desire to elevate the importance of the individual, or an opportunistic rebel, in it for power and personal gain?

Is using music theory cheating? Go ahead and use whatever form of expression pleases you and who cares what anyone thinks.

Arps ftw

In the 70s I used an ARP Odyssey, loved it. Now-a-days I use software based synthesizers/samples and love 'em. I feel no particular compunction to not use appreciators, and will, if the need arises, plug one in. My only concern is how that fits in with the overall song.
 
Likewise, I use synthesizers/samples to plug in, say, some orchestral strings. I can't afford the real thing and again my only concern is how that would fit in with the song.
 
Oddly about the only thing I wouldn't plug in is guitar patches, there I remain steadfastly loyal to the concept that if I can't play it then it won't get played. This may contribute to a lack of technical brilliance on my guitar parts. However I've been known to fudge some playing through the use of open tuning, slowing the tempo down so I can actually play the part, multiple tracks for dicey chord changes, comping, etc. and so on. All of which I consider cheating but TFB.
 
Regards,
 
 

Totally understand where you are coming from on the EBM part.  I am very much into alternative electronic/ebm/synthpop and in recent months have been trying to learn at creating pieces myself starting from scratch with no musical knowledge.
 
At first I struggled to understand how a lot of ebm music was produced until I discovered arps and sequencers.  Once I did it all made sense, I stuck a few (ok, a lot!) arps into parts of my recordings and they instantly transformed into something much more familiar..
 
I don't feel it devalues any of the bands I listen to, besides there is certainly a lot more that goes into that genre however I appreciate it can play a huge part in creating that sort of sound.
 

I remember a few years ago demonstrating just that to a friend of mine who was into industrial/ebm music. I loaded an instance of Z3T4 and used the initial arp patch -  the whole chord progression was in there - all I had to do was to push one key w/ one finger. I then quickly added a kick pattern. "That's how you write one of those songs".

Even funnier is the fact that a few months later, one of his favorite bands came out w/ a album and released that same thing as a song - just not in the same key.