Learn Open Guitar Tunings
Open tunings are a family of alternate guitar tunings where the open strings are tuned to reproduce the sound of the common major and minor chords.
They are used in blues, rock and various types of folk music. Open tunings are somewhat less common with finger style guitarists, and more common with chord focused, strumming guitarists. Using them is a matter of taste. You have to decide whether the extra effort to re-tune the guitar between each song is worth it.
There are a huge variety of open tunings but basically they all work the same way.
The six strings of the guitar are tuned to form a simple chord. Once this is done we can play further chords by simply barring all the strings at the appropriate fret.
Since a guitarist only needs one finger to make the basic chord shape, it leaves the rest of their fingers free to alter the chord, throw in extra riffs, or seamlessly swap to other chords. Open tunings also allow us to play progressions that would otherwise be impossible.
Listed below are some of the more common major chord open tunings.
- Open G – D G D G B D
- Open C – C G C G C E
- Open D – D A D F# A D
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