About Open Tuned Guitar

Welcome to the wonderful world of open tuned guitar. On this site, you will learn how to tune your guitar differently to the standard EADGBE tuning to make the most incredible music.



If you've only been playing the guitar for a short time, you may be surprised to learn that a lot of the guitar music you hear doesn't use standard tuning. Famous rock and folk guitarists like Joni Mitchell and Jimmy Page tweak their guitars to explore and exploit the full potential of their instruments. I advise you to stick with standard tuning until you've mastered the basics, then have a look at what possiblities are available to you.



Open tuned guitar is nothing new. Even in the early days of modern classical, guitarists would re-tune their guitars in order to reproduce music that had been originally written for lute or even older instruments. To play lute music without too many difficult fingerings, the third string, G, has to be tuned down to F#. Although strictly speaking this is an alternative tuning, not an open tuning, this shows you that there is no obligation to stick with the EADGBE tuning.



What's the difference between alternative tuning and open tuning?



I would say that alternative tuning covers anything that is not standard tuning. Open tuning is a way of tuning the guitar that allows the open strings to make harmonies or very often full chords. If you're a jazz musician, any combination of notes can make a chord (!), but more generally, if by playing the open strings you can hear a three-note chord - that's open tuning.



Even the simple drop-D tuning, DADGBE gives us a two note harmony - the first and the fifth in the key of D or the first and the fourth in the key of A. Of course, even standard tuning could be described as open tuning for the sixth, third, second and first strings sound an E minor chord, while the fourth, third and second give us a G major.



So if standard tuning is an open tuning, we could say that all open tunings are alternative tunings except standard tuning.



You'll need to develop your ear in order to move from one tuning to another. Electronic tuners are useful, but it's not good to be dependent on them. I've used three or four different tunings in the course of a two hour concert - if my tuner had stopped working for any reason, I'd have been in trouble!