Open tuning for guitar

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Many aspiring guitar players will at some time become interested in open tunings while others will play their whole life without ever venturing outside of standard 6 string tuning of EADGBE.

I have personally found with cover songs that I can usually adapt any song in an open key to standard tuning. The advantage of this of course, especially if you only have one guitar, is that you are not constantly re-tuning to suit the song. However once you learn to play a song that was written in an open tuning, you can’t un-hear it. For example Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones originally recorded Jumping Jack Flash in Open E tuning. I played it in standard tuning for years, after I learned it in open E that is the only way it sounds right to me.  Keith used open G tuning quite a lot as well.

In a much simpler sense, when you tune to an open tuning you are tuning to an open chord. For instance “G’ would be DGDGBD rather than EADGBE.  Now when you strum without fretting you still make a G chord, when you lay your index finger across any fret pressing all 6 strings you change the chord. What could be simpler?  If fact a lot of the old blues masters who are credited with guitar mastery had in fact a very rudimentary understanding of their instrument but where able to create interesting music in open tunings sometimes with the aid of a glass slide made from a bottle neck.

​Many people also find playing around in open tuning very therapeutic because it is hard to play wrong notes making it easy to create beautiful sound-scapes. Here is a helpful link with depth on tunings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_tunings

Check out the video below of The Rolling Stones Wild Horses played in open G tuning!
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