Discover the beautiful and distinctive sounds of Open D tuning
In this Gibson App video, Irene Ketikidi continues to demonstrate more useful information about Open D tuning, arming you with new chord shapes reminiscent of the great Joni Mitchell.
Understanding Open D tuning
Open D tuning (D-A-D-F#-A-D) is a major part of Joni’s style, though clearly, she embraced many other special tunings, which you can search and explore on her site. First, let’s look again at how to tune your guitar to Open D:
- Low E string (6th string): Tune down to D
- A string (5th string): Tune to A (stays the same)
- D string (4th string): Tune to D (stays the same)
- G string (3rd string): Tune down to F#
- B string (2nd string): Tune down to A
- High E string (1st string): Tune down to D
When strummed open, the strings form a D major chord (D, A, D, F#, A, D), providing a resonant and full-bodied sound ideal for blues and many other styles. As you see and hear in the video, when you use your index finger to bar all six strings, you have a major chord named by the lowest note.
The video examines some simple one and two-finger chord shapes that bring the tuning to life. Sliding these easy chord shapes up and down the fretboard will allow you to play a blues tune featuring unusual timbres, and it’s ideal for slide playing to accentuate melodic blues stylings. It’s also perfect for fingerstyle arpeggios.
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