I've recently taken to tuning down my guitar as much as three steps on each string. Kept in standard tuning of sorts but just lower in pitch. I do this for two reasons mainly. Firstly, this suits my singing voice much better and I can now cover songs which previously would have been too far out of my range. Then, secondly, I like the way the strings have less tension on them. I find this lends a kind of ringing tone to the chords I'm playing, as obviously they vibrate more.

I am using both of my guitars in this way ( a Stanford D20, and a J45 ), and I use D'addario extra light strings on both of them.

I wonder if there is a way that I could get the same loose feeling on the strings but not have to tune down quite so far to acheive this. Both guitars are well enough set up with an action that I like and have got used to.

I have heard of low tension strings, but I cannot find them where I live. Do you think that I should have the guitars professionally set up to acheive the ' feel ' that I like, and is this even possible. Also will my guitars suffer any long term problems because of what I am doing.

Your thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks, Rick.