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by lc9er 1914 days ago
I think context is important. If you are talking about guitar based music, then E is a pretty safe bet as home. But what if a group doesn’t use standard tuning? The first two examples that come to mind are Alice In Chains and Tool. They use E flat tuning and drop-d tuning, respectively (mostly). When I listen to them, Eb and D are home.
3 comments

The instrument tuning doesn't change the fact that a song has a key/home.

If someone plays it in another key, transposes it etc, it will still have a specific key, just transposed.

In this case of course it's about the Jimi Hendrix recorded cover version, not trying to get some key that would hold across all possible versions.

It feels like home because of the key of the song, not the instrument. Sometimes the guitar is tuned to play a song where the key matches the lowest string, but many songs are of course played in other keys.
Jimi played in Eb a lot too. Kurt Cobain and SRV too.
That’s cos it sounds heavier but the key is relative.