Home » Music » Guitar 101 » Alternate Tunings

Alternate Tunings

© Jason Elek

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Guitar101.

This time we are going to look at one way to mix up your solo repertoire a little bit. (By solo, I mean just you and your guitar, not wheedly-wheedly GUITAR SOLO!)

Sometimes, when you are accompanying yourself on guitar, you may find that certain chords lack that full sound that you like to hear. One proven way to help remedy the situation is to use alternate tunings.

One benefit of alternate tunings is that you can use the open strings to your full advantage. For example, a common tuning for slide players is open G. It only requires you to retune three of your strings from standard. The two E strings drop down to D, and the A string drops down to G. So from low to high you have D G D G B D. When you strum the open strings, you get a pretty sweet-sounding G chord. The advantage of this tuning for slide players is that your major chords are all straight barres across the fretboard, so you can play them with the slide. This tuning was a favorite for the old time blues players like Robert Johnson.

A slight variation on this open G tuning (called 'open' G because when you play all the open strings, it is a G chord) is heard on some modern recordings, including Pearl Jam's song, "Daughter." In this version of open G, the low E string is tuned up to G, so the two low strings on the guitar are both tuned to exactly the same note. This adds a droning effect that can be quite nice. It also assures that the lowest note that you hear in a straight barre chord is the root note, a subtle touch that is surprisingly pleasing to the ear.

Another open tuning that is useful is drop D. The reason for the name is that you drop the low E down to a D, so you can get those crunchy power chords by barring the three low strings with one finger straight across. This tuning is very popular with a lot of the grunge and fast metal music that is being played today. Some other artists, including Neil Young on "Cinnamon Girl," also drop the high E down to D for an added twist.

The last variation that we are going to look at this time is a form of open D. You only need to retune three strings from standard for this variation as well. The low and high E strings drop down to D, and the B string drops down to A. From low to high, it is D A D G A D. You can listen to Dashboard Confessional, which is nothing more than just a kid and his guitar, to find out just how much sound one person can get out of this tuning.

The copyright of the article Alternate Tunings in Guitar 101 is owned by Jason Elek. Permission to republish Alternate Tunings in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.