Sunday, February 08, 2009
Tuning to and from Open-D
It's a relatively simple task to switch to and from open-D and standard tuning. I've done it for years, but then again, I went through a whole discovery process to get to open-D in the first place.
That was because of my utter failure as a guitarist in standard tuning. To this day, I'm hopeless in standard tuning, as proven a few weeks back when a friend handed me a guitar of his to try out. Yeah, I fumbled through a few first position chords and attempted a Chuck Berry lick or two, but true to form, I did not impress.
To get back to the point, I made the flip to open-D from standard through experimentation and some background research. I settled on this wonderful guitar tuning because of its marvelous simplicity, and the fact that I could actually get music out of it.
As I progressed in my new found tuning, I still periodically flipped back, just to see if there was any discernible improvement in standard (there never was). But I did learn to become adept at the re-tune and I would encourage anyone to give it a try. Contrary to popular belief, retuning a guitar is not a particularly arduous task; as a matter of fact, one of the benefits of open-D is that tuning the guitar to itself is actually simpler, because of the repetition of strings (D and A). Combined with the fact that open-D and standard tuning share the same middle A an D strings, retuning is not a huge stumbling block. I have even done it on the fly during gigs.
I would encourage anyone to try their hand at a re-tune from standard to open-D tuning and back again. I do it just confirm that I'm a hopeless guitarist in standard tuning. For you, there may be more useful reasons. :)
That was because of my utter failure as a guitarist in standard tuning. To this day, I'm hopeless in standard tuning, as proven a few weeks back when a friend handed me a guitar of his to try out. Yeah, I fumbled through a few first position chords and attempted a Chuck Berry lick or two, but true to form, I did not impress.
To get back to the point, I made the flip to open-D from standard through experimentation and some background research. I settled on this wonderful guitar tuning because of its marvelous simplicity, and the fact that I could actually get music out of it.
As I progressed in my new found tuning, I still periodically flipped back, just to see if there was any discernible improvement in standard (there never was). But I did learn to become adept at the re-tune and I would encourage anyone to give it a try. Contrary to popular belief, retuning a guitar is not a particularly arduous task; as a matter of fact, one of the benefits of open-D is that tuning the guitar to itself is actually simpler, because of the repetition of strings (D and A). Combined with the fact that open-D and standard tuning share the same middle A an D strings, retuning is not a huge stumbling block. I have even done it on the fly during gigs.
I would encourage anyone to try their hand at a re-tune from standard to open-D tuning and back again. I do it just confirm that I'm a hopeless guitarist in standard tuning. For you, there may be more useful reasons. :)
