Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Playing By Ear in Open-D Tuning - Part 1
What does it mean to play guitar by ear? Different things to different people, I suppose. I apply the term differently, even to my own personal situation.
On the one side, I play guitar by ear. That means I don't need to read music notation (which I can, actually), or tab (which I can't for the life of me)to play my guitar(s). I can figure out chords, chord progressions, melody lines, solos, all without the aid of written music. I generally learn from recorded versions of the songs I like.
Open-D tuning has been a true door-opener for me in song learning, especially by ear. The versatility of this particular tuning is well documented (if greatly under-utilized) in the guitar playing world, but generally not for learning songs. But open-D tuning is a terrific way to unlock your favourite tunes. For example, just getting the basic "roadmap" of a song down - that general progression of chords, verses, choruses, codas, endings, etc. is achieved with relative ease in open-D, because at the start you can just use your lowest D string, or even the three low (D-A-D) strings, to parse out the basic chords. At first pass, you may not get all the nuances (majors, minors, sevenths, etc.), but you will be able to quickly pound out the basics of the song, and then go back and refine. During this refinement stage, open-D tuning once again shows its adaptability. In no other tuning can you "feel" the chords of a song out like open-D. If you've got a song in the key of G for example, and the the progression moves from a G to an A chord, it is quite simple to discern whether that A chord is a major or a minor, with a simple finger movement. Because the strings in open-D are tuned to a major triad, things like minors, etc. tend to jump right out at you.
So that's one side of ear playing that open-D can really help bring out. For a working musician, who learns songs to get paid with, or just to perform in general, it is a genuine guitar playing aid.
There's another type of ear playing that is just as exciting and perfectly suited for open-D tuning as well. I'll get into it next post.
On the one side, I play guitar by ear. That means I don't need to read music notation (which I can, actually), or tab (which I can't for the life of me)to play my guitar(s). I can figure out chords, chord progressions, melody lines, solos, all without the aid of written music. I generally learn from recorded versions of the songs I like.
Open-D tuning has been a true door-opener for me in song learning, especially by ear. The versatility of this particular tuning is well documented (if greatly under-utilized) in the guitar playing world, but generally not for learning songs. But open-D tuning is a terrific way to unlock your favourite tunes. For example, just getting the basic "roadmap" of a song down - that general progression of chords, verses, choruses, codas, endings, etc. is achieved with relative ease in open-D, because at the start you can just use your lowest D string, or even the three low (D-A-D) strings, to parse out the basic chords. At first pass, you may not get all the nuances (majors, minors, sevenths, etc.), but you will be able to quickly pound out the basics of the song, and then go back and refine. During this refinement stage, open-D tuning once again shows its adaptability. In no other tuning can you "feel" the chords of a song out like open-D. If you've got a song in the key of G for example, and the the progression moves from a G to an A chord, it is quite simple to discern whether that A chord is a major or a minor, with a simple finger movement. Because the strings in open-D are tuned to a major triad, things like minors, etc. tend to jump right out at you.
So that's one side of ear playing that open-D can really help bring out. For a working musician, who learns songs to get paid with, or just to perform in general, it is a genuine guitar playing aid.
There's another type of ear playing that is just as exciting and perfectly suited for open-D tuning as well. I'll get into it next post.
