folk) you can get pretty far with simplified open tunings.

For beginners that want to accompany simple vocals (e.g. I think there are a few good uses for open tunings. For example: in standard tuning, an open E chord has the intervals (low to high) r 5 r 3 5 r - so by making that your actual tuning it becomes mega easy to boogie away with one finger slides, or hammer and pull lots of 6s and flat 7s on that 5th string. Some chord voicings will sit much better underneath your fingers, then when you barre you've also got different options available. Open tunings allow you to play things which your fingers couldn't accomplish in standard tuning. Plus, although there are songbooks and tabs for stuff that's in open tunings, not everyone wants to learn 'The Needle and the Damage Done' or 'The Bricklayer's Beautiful Daughter'.īut there are advantages too. It also means there'll be more fingerings for you to remember, so it increases the potential for playing errors - which might be de-motivating. Players who might do that include Martin Carthy, Richard Thompson, Pierre Bensusan, and Michael Hedges.Īs for the drawbacks? I suppose if you use lots of different tunings, bandmates and audience won't be too amused if you're constantly re-tuning your guitar every couple of songs. Guitarist who use open tunings often swap around with different tunings for different songs. Apparently he was introduced to the tuning by Ry Cooder who'd been working as a session player on some early material when the band were quite new.īlues slide master Elmore James used to play in open-E, which I think is likely to be the tuning that Duane Allman used too.īritish folky Davey Graham was famous for using DADGAD, which John Martin also used a lot (Martin's song 'Solid Air' is quite well known). Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones is often cited as the best example of somebody who plays open-G. With a half-decent ear, a little experiment shouldn't take too long to reveal that anything you pick on the open strings can be repeated to sound quite good at the 5th, 7th or 12th fret. If you had no access to formal instruction, left to their own devices most people would eventually be able to fathom out how to tune to an open chord. Various open tunings have proved popular amongst self-taught guitarists at different times, especially in traditional blues styles and the folk revival of the 1950s.

Guitar tuner open g