The Open-D Tuning Guitar Spot

I have found that kids really take to open-D tuning while learning guitar. I've had different type of child students. Some were brand new to guitar. Others had lessons in traditional standard tuning. Both types of students benefit from open-D.

By far, the more interesting case study seems to be the children transitioning from standard tuning to open-D. In my experience, these kids are generally a bit older, say 10-12 years of age. Usually they've had some exposure to guitar, by way of lessons, or in the odd case, self-taught. Most that I've encountered have been frustrated. That's the reason they or their parents sought an alternative guitar teaching method in the first place. Often, I have been shown method books, and lesson plans, and I've received demonstrations of what they've learned and played to date. Then, I'm often told what they want to learn to play. How different this can be! They've struggled with "Mary Had A Little Lamb" and such. They want to learn White Stripes, Nirvana, or Led Zeppelin, or Black Sabbath...

Lack of progress on guitar generally translates into lack of fun, which evolves into lack of interest. It gives me great pleasure to see the turn-around, once we re-tune the guitar to D A D F# A D. I like to throw the lesson plans out, at least at first, and just show the child, how much simpler it is to strum in open-D tuning. I show them that a major chord can be played with as few as three strings, by holding down a single finger; and that the same finger can be moved up or down the fret board of the guitar to create new chords. I also demonstrate the fat "rock" sound (electric or acoustic guitar - it doesn't seem to matter) of the low D A D strings. I'll show a simple D D6 D7 pattern right at the bottom of the guitar neck to show how even open strings can sound cool with the simplest of manipulations.

I ask all students of my system to read through all of my (48-page) book, before they play anything. Not only does this cover all the basics of Guitar-eze's open-D system, but it also offers philosophical advice along the way. I stress the importance of experimention. I have some hard and fast rules, of course, such as the necessity of strengthening the index finger at the start (although this rule can be broken and I do break it personally all the time). The purpose of the initial read is to try to reinforce the visual nature of open-D. This way, students can start to see how and why their fingers change the sounds the guitar produces.

It gives me great personal satisfaction to see students (of any age) "get" guitar, even after they've experienced frustration or a lack of progress in the past.

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