The term "ostrich guitar" was coined by the Velvet Underground's Lou Reed after the pre-Velvet Underground song "The Ostrich"[1] by Lou Reed and the Primitives, on which he first recorded using this tuning, the first known commercial composition to make use of a trivial guitar tuning.

[5][6] John Cale, a collaborator with avant-garde composer La Monte Young, recognised the similarity between Reed's guitar tuning and Young's work involving drone music when he was hired to play Reed's song "The Ostrich" as part of a fabricated touring group.

[7] Reed and Cale (who would play viola, keyboards and bass) began to collaborate and investigate the connections between ostrich tuning and drone music, as the band introduced new members (such as guitarist Sterling Morrison and percussionist Angus MacLise, another student of La Monte Young) and they became known as the Velvet Underground.

Cale had composed and recorded Loop in 1964, but which became the first EP released under this band name, composed of drones played on an electric viola, and the combination of both Cale's viola and Reed's guitar tunings would be an early hallmark of their work.

Reed used ostrich tunings on the 1967 album The Velvet Underground & Nico on the songs "Venus in Furs" (appearing at the end of the song) and "All Tomorrow's Parties",[8] which also included Cale playing drones on viola.