![]() ![]() Hey while you’re there you might as well make the most of open A tuning like a boss! Open A tuning: E-A-E-A-C#-E (low to high)…hint: it’s an A major chord Playing open A tuning like a boss…Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash On my track ‘ The Old B.C.‘, you can hear how I perform the bass line on the lower strings and pick out the melody on the higher strings. ![]() Open G tuning is also known as ‘Spanish’ tuning, don’t worry about this for now it’s just for reference. Keith Richards is also a big fan of this tuning, using it on “ Gimme Shelter“, “ Honky Tonk Woman” and “ Brown Sugar” to name a few. Which means you can play some pretty darn tasty bass lines and do some widdly blues stuff with the melody lines on the higher strings, if you’re a guitar ninja! This means that the root is now on the fifth fret of the 6th string (the lowest one) and the root of the chord is the open 5th string (G). Which makes for some interesting harmonic possibilities. It’s also worth noting that the D is the bass note of the chord. You’ll probably notice that this tuning makes use of an open G major triad (G-B-D). To get to this tuning you need to tune the guitar as follows D-G-D-G-B-D (low to high). Yes it’s true Robert Johnson was a big fan of open G tuning, using it on a number of his recordings. Open G tuning: D-G-D-G-B-D (low to high)…hint: it’s a G major chord ![]() Use open G tuning if you want to sound (a bit) like Robert Johnson * Blues slide guitar player CeDell Davis used a butterknife for his slide work. Damn you probably know even more major chords now than you did in standard tuning, and that can only be a good thing. Try not to worry yourself too much about having to learn new scale patterns, or chord shapes, at least you have major chords nailed. I KNOW, mind BLOWN right? So when you stick a glass slide, medicine bottle, beer bottleneck or knife* along the fretboard, you get a major chord. The first and probably easiest thing to understand about the open tunings for slide guitar, is that they do one particularly magical thing they give you a major chord when you play all the strings in unison. Don’t worry though! There are a number of tunings that should make things easier to get that slide sound that you’re after. Great question! The simple answer is there isn’t a ‘correct’ open tuning for slide guitar. What’s the right open tuning for slide guitar? Since the dawn of time understanding which open tunings to use for slide guitar, has been challenging the worlds greatest intellectuals. Grab a seat as I’d like to talk to you about open tunings for slide guitar. Then very quickly you’ll stop and think, ‘why the hell does this sound like a screaming cat?’, and ‘why is this so difficult?’ Well there’s probably a multitude of reasons, but lets start with the basics. When starting out on your slide guitar journey, you’ll have no doubt bought your 1st slide, grabbed your guitar in standard tuning ready to blaze away like Son House. Subscribe to my mailing list for regular updates and cool content. ![]()
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