Tunings for guitar

I don't really understand the phrase "standard tuning". For one thing, the tuning it usually refers to on guitar is one I *never* use. Honestly, I don't think I play a single song in:

	1st	E
	2nd	B
	3rd	G
	4th	D
	5th	A
	6th	E

I mean, I'm sure someone must play in it. Just like someone (else) must wear all those nylon stockings and high heels.

I wrote that, and then someone pointed me at this article, which details the tunings Nic Jones played in before his accident, and then also includes a little disquisition in which the author opines that tunings are a Bad Thing. In rebuttal, I will say that this is *silly*. You don't like open tunings? Fine, don't play in them. But experimenting with how instruments can be made to sound is what music is all about. These tunings are part of me now, and you will excise them when you pry them (along with my (unused) PGP key) out of my cold, dead fingers. Anyway, there is some useful stuff in that article about other modal tunings that Nic used. I've experimented with a couple of them but don't have much to add here about them, so haven't included them. In any event, before the accident that largely ended his career, the writer lists a bunch of open tunings Jones used: open C, open G, open g minor, and C modal, which are all below, plus open c minor, G modal, and G modal

I think one reason tunings have always seemed natural to me on guitar is that by the time I was 20 I was learning to play banjo, and there is *no* doubt that you *have* to retune the banjo if you want to play in different keys. The engineering is physically impossible otherwise. There are (plenty of) guitar players who play in any key in standard tuning (though I defy them to make it sound exactly like what I play in open tunings) but I've never heard of a banjo player who took that route. This page has a few notes on banjo tunings.

Note that in these tables, the treble string is at the top. Because it *is* the highest-pitched string, I have a tendency to call it the "top" string. Thing is, if you play a guitar the normal way, it's on the bottom as you look down at the strings as you strum them. So it's not exactly logical.

One key to retuning the guitar frequently while people are waiting: pick one string to use as an anchor so you don't get hopelessly lost. The more strings you're going to retune at a time, the more important this is. If you have to actually retune all six strings, pick one string as your first anchor, tune as many strings as you can to it and get them in tune with each other, then pick a second anchor and retune the first anchor.

In general you want to pick as your anchor a string that will be, in the new tuning, in octaves, fourths, or fifths to as many of the strings as possible. So, for example, if I start in "standard" and want to go to Open G, I pick the D string as my anchor and tune the bass and top strings in octaves to it and then the fifth string in fifths. Finally, I check the tuning of the second string, the only third. The reason for doing it this way is that it's easier to hear octaves, fourths, and fifths accurately. Thirds are harder to tune precisely, so leave them until last, and don't saddle yourself with an anchor string that requires a lot of them. As another example, to go from Open G to Open C, I pick the G string as my anchor, and tune the Cs to it (fifths), and then finally tune the top string (the third). It is actually very quick once you're in the habit of it.

Learning chords

Yes, you do have to learn new chord shapes in these different tunings. But it's a lot like languages. The second language you learn is the hardest. After that, each one you add gets easier because you see the similarities and develop the ability to see and use patterns. While you're at it, learn to play banjo as well. Because: at least some of the standard banjo tunings are the same as the top four strings of guitar tunings described below, so you'll get twice as much use out of those new chords.

Drop D

	1st	E
	2nd	B
	3rd	G
	4th	D
	5th	A
	6th	D

This is of course the easiest tuning to adopt from "standard". Just tune the bottom string down and there you go. One thing that may not be obvious, though: it's a very nice tuning for playing in, of all things, a minor, because you get such a nice, full sound on the either D major or d minor, both useful chords in a minor. I use Drop D for an a version of the version of Mary Hamilton I learned from Sandy and Caroline Paton years ago; that is in a minor.

Open G

The tuning goes:

	1st	D
	2nd	B
	3rd	G
	4th	D
	5th	G
	6th	D

In other words, you tune both the top E and bottom E down to D and the fifth string down to G from A. If you're moving to Open G from Drop D, therefore, you only need to retune two strings. Considerations like this do play a part in what order I play songs in. I try not to put myself in the position of having to retune four or five strings in one song break, although I will do it if I think there's a good reason to do so. But in general, unless you're a tuning virtuoso, it's probably not a good idea to decide to retune from, say, Open C to Open D, which requires changes to all six strings, in that one two-minute break while you're introducing the next song. Open G is a little bit limited as a tuning in that most of what you play in it tends to sound all the same after a while, but it's commonly used because it does sound nice, especially if you like progressions of sixths and tenths. On Roseville Fair, A Scarborough Settler's Lament is in Open G, capoed up three or maybe four, and so is Turning Toward the Morning, capoed up two.

Open C

Like Open G, this tuning's a little bit limited, in that you're stuck with that top third all the time. But it still sounds nice for Roseville Fair, capoed up one.

The other version of Open C, which I actually don't see used much although I used to sing Bill Staines's "Sampler Song", whose tune is somewhat similar to Roseville Fair, in it (I've since realized this song goes a lot easier on the autoharp):

	1st	C
	2nd	G
	3rd	E
	4th	C
	5th	G
	6th	C

This is even more radical than the first version of Open C, in that you wind up tuning the first three strings down two whole tones, the 4th and fifth down a whole tone each, and the bass string down two whole tones again.

But of course it all depends where you start from. If you're in Open G, moving to Open C is retuning 4 strings no more than a whole tone each (although the second Open C is still more work).

Open D

	1st	D
	2nd	A
	3rd	F#
	4th	D
	5th	A
	6th	D

From standard, four strings are different. Top two down a whole tone, third down a half-tone, fourth and fifth stay the same, bottom string down a whole tone. But again, depends where you start. Don't try retuning from either Open C to Open D on stage (unless you're very practiced at this kind of thing).

Open g minor

I didn't learn this tuning or any of the others from her. But (in 2025) it's interesting to look back at her approach. McCaslin thought in chords; I think more in notes. That is, I figure out what notes I want to play and find the most efficient way to play them. She seems to have picked the chords she wanted to play and looked for ways to play them, or maybe she found chords and jsut wrote them down. This led to some choices that seem odd to me. On her song "Down the Road", she plays a b minor chord by shifting all the way up to the 9th fret and holding down the bottom three strings. She calls this chod "b minor sus D); she winds up with: B F# B F# A D. To play what sounds almost identical, I would simply fret the bottom A and the top A at the 2nd fret, giving D B D F# B D. I then simply avoid playing hte bottom D. In the clip of her playing the song live on YouTube you can see she makes her method look and sound very smooth and antural. But to me it's a bananas amount of extra work for very little difference.

On her website (retrieved from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine), McCaslin said she was inspired to explore open tunings by Joni Mitchell's use of chords, and she put considerable effort into explaining her style on her tunings pages - she has a page of chords for each of open G, open D, open g minor, and one she calls A tuning, which is standard tuning with the B dropped to A. So she says that in open G and open D you play a lot of suspended chords. While that's technically true in music theoretical terms, the way I've always seen it (and as Bound for Glory radioman Phil Shapiro explained it to me back when) is that you often play *partial* chords, where some strings aren't going to fit the chord you wanted and you just avoid playing them. A skilled fingerpicker (which, don't get me wrong, McCaslin was; she was also a akilled banjo player) simply works around those limitations. McCaslin saw them as an opportunity to add richness to her accompaniments, and she definitely had a point.

Ultimately, all these tunings (including standard) give you choices about how and where on the neck on play any given chord. It's up to you to find the opportunity that makes you the most comfortable and will give you the smoothest transition to the next thing you want to play. Bottom line: don't make things unnecessarily difficult for yourself.

	1st	D
	2nd	G
	3rd	D
	4th	G
	5th	Bb
	6th	D

Move into it from Open G, and you'll only have to retune one string -- the B string -- a half-step.

DAGDAD

	1st	D
	2nd	A
	3rd	G
	4th	D
	5th	A
	6th	D

DAGDAD is reasonably easy to move into or out of from a variety of other tunings: Open D, Open G, Drop D, so I guess you can add that to its assets.

Dulcimer-like tunings

There are several of these dulcimer-alike tunings.

In C:

	1st	C			1st	C
	2nd	C			2nd	G
	3rd	G			3rd	G
	4th	C			4th	C
	5th	G			5th	G
	6th	C			6th	C

In G:

	1st	D
	2nd	G
	3rd	D
	4th	G
	5th	G
	6th	D

My guitar

If you have never thought about how you put on your guitar strings, it's worth taking a look at the FAQs and information on the Taylor site. In contrast to their advice (and based on advice from John Ellis, former owner of Ithaca's Guitar Workshop (now Ithaca Guitar Works), I remove all six strings at once so that I can oil the fingerboard and clean between the bridge and the soundhole (I also find it quicker and more efficient to do it this way rather than one at a time). I use a pegwinder to put the new strings on and tighten them most of the way so I can ensure there are plenty of turns on each peg. Then I tune each string in turn up to pitch (starting with the A string, because that's the only pitch pipe I have or use), pulling on each string to stretch it and then tuning it up again several times. I find this runs the strings in well enough that if I then go out and play a set the strings hold tune. The bass E and treble E need the most stretching. The other benefit to this procedure is that if you do by any chance have a defective string you find out right away, rather than on stage in the middle of a song.

Update 2010: The massive hassles of air travel convinced me to finally get a second guitar to keep in the US. The curious twist is that when I bought the Taylor I was looking for, I thought, a very good Guild jumbo; I bought the Taylor on the basis that it sounded like one. This time, I went to the Guitar Works in Ithaca and asked for a Taylor like the one I have. They didn't have one - but they did have a very good old Guild jumbo. The two guitars have never met, of course, since one lives in London and the other in Harrisburg, but if you put their photos together the Guild looks like the Taylor's long-lost, slightly road-wearier, older brother. I use the same custom string sets on both.

Last update: February 27, 2025

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