Have you ever experimented with different tunings? This is arguably one of the best ways to open more creative doors with your playing and songwriting, and it makes a handy trick for finding new moods that are sure to spark your inspirational flow.
The best thing about playing in different tunings, particularly open tunings, is that, much like setting parameters, it changes the way you think about playing. You might be able to employ similar shapes and patterns, but they offer new, unexpected sounds that have a totally different feel to them. Not only this, but you automatically learn a lot more about relationships between notes and so your theory develops at the same time – it’s a win-win!
‘Open tuning’ simply means that when you sound all the open strings, you’ll be sounding a certain chord. Each string is tuned to one of the three notes that make up that particular chord, for example, open G tuning will result in a G chord as all the strings are tuned to either G, B or D. This can be really helpful when improvising as if you don’t know where to go next, you can always revert to an open string and know that it’s going to sound good.
Here are a few different tunings you can try your hand at (6th/thickest string to 1st/thinnest string):
Open G: D G D G B D
Open D (typical for slide guitar): D A D F# A D
Open E (also typical for slide guitar): E B E G# B E
Drop D: D A D G B E
For an ethereal sound – good for fingerpicking – try: D A D G A D
As a older new guitarist I really like your style of down to earth approaches to guitar playing. I do have a question I’m trying to learn chords and since my hands aren’t musicians hands I have difficulty muting other strings when I’m trying to practice chords. It’s pretty discouraged any tips…
Thanks
Thanks for reading, River! It’s funny you refer to “musicians hands”, I didn’t know such a thing existed 🙂
I wrote another blog post on this topic, called “Why Do My Chords Sound Bad”, you’ll find pictures here that should help. I also made a free video course on playing chords, which is also available through this site. Click the “courses” option in the menu, and choose “beginner course”. I do teach private lessons as well, if you’re looking for some more personal advice – I can’t really tell what you’re doing wrong without seeing your technique.
Don’t give up, there are many ways to play most chords, so just because you can’t do it one way, doesn’t mean you can’t play it at all.