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  #1  
Old 10-06-2011, 02:31 AM
lennylux lennylux is offline
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Default Anyone exclusively use open tunings?

Morning,

Just thought I would ask all you tuning tinkerers out there if there's any of you exclusively using open tuning. A little background. Having managed to get myself a few guitars now I feel it's time to maybe have a look at something new in terms of usage. Gig-wise I play in a small 2 guitar combo. I tend to play a little picking, the runs and the more 'lead(ish)" stuff of the two of us.

As for open tuning, I do mess around with a little bit of open D for a couple of Mumford & sons covers we have done before, I'm not really looking to get into slide so much, but I do like the sound from open tuning. Are there no slide players out there using open tunings to play stuff you would normally associate with standard tuning, I'm interested & intrigued to find out more about this, how do you find material/tabs available for these arrangements in open tunings? good/bad/non-existent?

While I wouldn't initially be going for a Keef or the Black Crowes, I'm considering investing some time in open tunings to learn some arrangements that take advantage of the drones and differing sounds available to players using these tunings, so good idea? Bad idea? frustrating setback in playing?

Lets hear your thoughts.
Cheers
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  #2  
Old 10-06-2011, 03:26 AM
Howard Emerson Howard Emerson is offline
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Lenny,
I have played exclusively in open tunings for the last 25 years or so. I play fingerstyle and bottleneck.

I play in dropped D, high dropped D, open D, G, G w/low C, and C tuning. I also play cross-tuned in D & G quite a bit.

The most frequent comment I've gotten from other players over the years is that they could not tell I was playing in an open tuning. I write almost all of what I play, save for a few unique covers.

You can certainly play well known songs in open tunings provided you're willing to put in the time to look at them from a different musical point of view. Open tunings can open lots of doors if you're determined, but they can also be very trite sounding if all you see is barre chords, which is, unfortunately, what many people gravitate to.

It's probably from the immediate gratification syndrome.

To hear some clips, go to my listening station at http://howardemerson.com/

I also teach via Skype.

Regards,
Howard Emerson

Last edited by Howard Emerson; 10-06-2011 at 04:35 AM. Reason: Clarity
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Old 10-06-2011, 05:57 AM
Fatfingerjohn Fatfingerjohn is offline
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I started doing some Open D a year ago just to give me something new to learn. Liked it so much that I have a second 6 stringer permanently tuned to open D. Probably spend my time 50:50 between the 2. I'm mainly fingerpicking song accompaniments, mainly folk style, rarely use barre chords in open D, no slide, fairly conventional stuff. I'm not a great guitarist by a long stretch.

I agree there's very little material that you can find specifically, although if you youtube search on "open D Tuning" you will find a fair number to watch and give you ideas for some songs. Generally, once you have found your way round the basic chord positions (some minor chords are harder to find, but em, bm are easy), and learned some of the up and down the neck alternatives, you can take many songs that you would play in standard tuning and just replicate them in open D with the same chord progressions. What you will find is that they ALL sound a lot different when fingerpicking them; some sound better, some sound worse; up to you then which tuning you prefer.

Here's a few I like to pick/strum (as accompaniment) in Open D

A lot of Tom Paxton
Joni Mitchell:- Big Y Taxi, Both sides now, Circle Game
Nillson Everybody's Talkin at Me
The Old Triangle
Something in the Air
Cyndi Lauper Time after Time
Water is Wide
Carole King Will you still love me tomorrow
Some Mark Knopfler
Ewan McColl Dirty Old Town
First Time ever I saw your face
Mr Tambourine Man
Julian Lennon Saltwater
Various Kate Rusby

Hope this helps get you going some.
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  #4  
Old 10-06-2011, 08:23 AM
salmonella salmonella is offline
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Default open or alternate?

Are you asking about "open" tunings or "alternate" tunings?
My understanding is that any tuning other than EADGBE is an alternate tuning but only a subset of them (those with each string tuned to one of the notes of the root chord) are open tunings. ie DADGAD is alternate, DADF#AD is open.
I play all alternate and some open tunings but they are not mainstream music and are generally specifically written for alternate tunings.
There are a lot of pieces written over the years in alternate tunings... Joan Baez, Carol King, The Who, Fleetwood Mac etc, etc.
Find some cool sounding songs in alternate tunings and work on those rather than pick an alternate tuning and try to find the songs to fit.
Dave
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Old 10-06-2011, 08:26 AM
StringFive StringFive is offline
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More and more I play outside of standard tuning lately. Most of my new original stuff is in double drop D, or open G. Some DADGAD. I find the open tunings are inspiring me more as a composer than standard does, for now anyway.
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Old 10-06-2011, 08:33 AM
lennylux lennylux is offline
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I was more specifically asking around:

Open D.
Open G
DADGad

Perhaps I should refine it by saying which offers two things:
- The presence of an altered sound. (the slight differences many find so appealing)
Remains a flexible tuning and able to be easily used for songs that normally would be in standard tuning.
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Old 10-06-2011, 09:04 AM
arie arie is offline
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for me it's open G or what is called "spanish" (DGDGBD), and open D. when i do play in a standard tuning it's usually dropped down a whole step. (DGCFAD)
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Old 10-06-2011, 09:09 AM
zombywoof zombywoof is offline
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I stumbled upon open tuning back in the mid-1960s. I would listen to Tommy Johnson and other blues guys (a friend of my Dad's had a large collection of 78 rpm "race" records which I would record onto a reel to reel) but could not figure how what those guys were doing. One day, I summoned up the courage to go to a local folk music gathering and there heard this guy getting that sound I was looking for out of his guitar. I asked him about it and he showed me Open G tuning.

I do not play in Open tunings exclusively but around 80% of the time. The usual suspects - Drop D, Open D, G, and E (don't use Open A a whole lot), Open Dm and so on.
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