While most things you play on guitar are in standard tuning, there is a lot to be said for alternate tunings in regard to expanding the scope of your sound, as well as increasing your creative ability on the instrument. There are many things you can do in alternate tunings that just can’t be done in standard. Despite this, many players tend to avoid alternate tunings, citing that it’s all too hard. They claim it’s challenging enough to play the guitar in standard, let alone changing everything by using a different type of tuning.
Alternate tunings however aren’t hard to play in at all. They in fact make things easier to do as they set your guitar up in a certain way that is to your advantage.
Today we are going to look at open tunings. Open tunings set your guitar up so that when you strum all the strings together they sound a particular chord.
For example, open G tuning is when you drop both the low and high E strings down to a D note, and your 5th string down to a G note. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strings remain the same as they are in standard tuning.
As a result, your open strings are now the notes of a G chord:
G chord = G B D
Open G tuning (low to high) =
D G D G B
D* Bolded notes represent strings that have been changed
Other types of tunings include modal, instrumental, and dropped tunings. However, our focus today is open tunings, so let’s get into 5 things you must know to get the most out of using open tunings in your guitar playing, so you can be up and sounding great with them straight away!
1. One Open Tuning Is All It Takes
Becoming familiar in one open tuning makes it that much easier to become familiar and efficient in others. This is because open tunings closely relate to each other. There’s always another open tuning not far from the one you are playing in.
Case in point, Open D and DADGAD tunings:
Open D Tuning - D A D
F# A DrnDADGAD Tuning - D A D
G A D
* DADGAD tuning is also sometimes called Dsus4 tuning
There is only one string that is different between these 2 very commonly used open tunings. So anything you learn in an Open D tuning can very easily be adjusted to be played in DADGAD tuning.
Consider these 3 chords in Open D tuning:
Open D Chords
You only need to slightly adjust these chords to play them in DADGAD tuning:
DADGAD Chords
So a progression in Open D tuning such as this one:
Open D Progression
Is going to be very similar to a progression in DADGAD tuning such as this:
DADGAD Progression2. No, You Do Not Have To Learn The Guitar All Over Again
For some time I believed playing in a tuning other than standard, was basically like having to learn to play guitar all over again. As a result, I avoided playing in alternate tunings for years.
How wrong I was. Don’t make the same mistake I did!
Fact is, a lot of tunings are still closely related to standard tuning. Take open G for example:
Standard Tuning - E A
D G B ErnOpen G Tuning - D G
D G B D
As you can see, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th strings remain the same in open G tuning as they appear in standard, so effectively 50% of the fretboard remains unchanged. So if you are playing in an open G tuning, many things will still be familiar to you on the fretboard and won’t feel anything like starting your guitar playing all over again.
Open tunings also make things easier to play, not harder. Try playing a song that is in an open tuning, exactly the same only in standard tuning and you’ll see what I mean. These tunings are working for you and open up, pardon the pun, a whole new world of sound you won’t ever get in standard tuning alone.
Let’s take a look at a bar chord in Open G tuning:
Open G Tuning Bar Chord
As you can see, all you need to do is bar a single fret. This allows you to do some things that would be very awkward to do in standard tuning, such as this shuffle pattern:
Open G Tuning Shuffle Patte
There are also some cool embellishments you can apply to this chord that would be impossible to do in standard tuning, like this:
Open G Tuning Shuffle With Embellishments3. Symmetrical Open Tunings
There are many more open tunings to consider than the ones we have looked at in today’s article. Many of these are quite symmetrical making scale runs and licks fall nicely under your fingers, so that they are easy to play.
Take the following tuning for example:
Csus2 Tuning - CGCGCD
Notice there are only 3 strings to learn here, C, G, and D. Compare that to the 5 strings you have to learn in standard tuning E, A, D, G, and B. This makes this tuning easier to play in straight away than standard tuning.
You just have to become a little familiar with it, and because it’s quite symmetrical, it’s not hard.
Here are some ideas to get you started in Csus2 tuning:
Csus2 Tuning Example 1Csus2 Tuning Example 2
Use a backing track in the key of C while playing around with the ideas above. This will help give you some context as well as inspire your creativity.
4. Start With Drop D Tunings
A great way to ease yourself into playing in open tunings, is to start with drop D tunings. Drop D tunings involve dropping either your 6th string down to a D note, or your 1st string down to a D note.
Three of the most commonly used open tunings, open G, open D, and DADGAD all have the low and high open strings dropped down to D notes. So by playing around in a drop tuning first, you become familiar in part with these open tunings.
This makes the transition over into open tunings much easier.
5. You Can Be Up And Sounding Great In Open Tunings Straight Away!
I’m assuming you already have basic techniques down such as strumming, chord changes etc. If not, you are going to find standard tuning hard to play in too, not just open tunings. However if you do have at least some basic technique, you can sound great instantly in an open tuning.
As I said earlier, open tunings are designed to make certain things easier to play on your guitar. They make what is impossible, or at least very awkward, in standard tuning, very possible and easy to play in an open tuning.
Here is a little bit of DADGAD tuning for you to show you what I mean:
DADGAD Example
Playing/improvising a single line melody on the top string while droning the low D string in DADGAD tuning sounds great! You could noodle around on this idea forever coming up with some cool melodies against the drone of the D string. Natural harmonics also sound great in open tunings as you can hear at the end of the example above.
rnHopefully you can now see that open tunings are not as intimidating to play in as they may first appear. To totally ignore them is to leave a lot on the table as far as the potential of the sounds you can get from an acoustic guitar. Don’t feel you have to specialise in open tunings to use them either. You may use them extensively, however you may only choose to use them here and there if you prefer. Whichever way you go, you’ll be glad you decided to opt in to the world of open tunings for your acoustic guitar playing.
rnTake your acoustic guitar playing and creativity to a whole new level by learning
how to play in DADGAD tuning