More Open Tunings

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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Open Tuning"


Major open tunings (giving a major chord with the open strings) include

Crossnote tunings

The above open tunings all give a major chord with open strings. Since it is highly likely guitarists will need to play minor chords as well, open tunings must be adapted to allow this by lowering the pitch of one of the strings forming the open chord by half a step. To avoid the relatively cumbersone designation "open D minor", "open C minor", such tunings are sometimes called "crossnote tunings". The term also expresses the fact that, by fretting the lowered string at the first fret, it is possible to produce a major chord very easily.

Crossnote tunings include

Modal tunings

Sometimes a guitarist will want a tuning that will permit very easy chords but not be defintively minor or major. In this case, modal tunings can be used. They can be especially effective with droning open strings, and give "suspended" second or fourth chords:

Modal tunings include:

"Extended chord" tunings

These tunings allow a guitarist to play an open seventh, ninth, eleventh or thirteenth chord. One or more of the strings is retuned to the appropriate note of the required scale. Such tunings may be either minor or major.

Examples are: