Among
alternative tunings
Guitar tunings are the assignment of pitches to the open strings of guitars, including acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and classical guitars. Tunings are described by the particular pitches that are made by notes in Western music. By ...
for the guitar, an open G tuning is an
open tuning
Guitar tunings are the assignment of pitches to the open strings of guitars, including acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and classical guitars. Tunings are described by the particular pitches that are made by notes in Western music. B ...
that features the
G-major chord; its
open
Open or OPEN may refer to:
Music
* Open (band), Australian pop/rock band
* The Open (band), English indie rock band
* Open (Blues Image album), ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969
* Open (Gotthard album), ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999
* Open (C ...
note
Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to:
Music and entertainment
* Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music
* ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian
* ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened version ...
s are selected from the notes of a G-major chord, such as the G-
major triad
In music theory, a major chord is a chord that has a root, a major third, and a perfect fifth. When a chord comprises only these three notes, it is called a major triad. For example, the major triad built on C, called a C major triad, has pitch ...
(G,B,D). For example, a popular open-G tuning is
:D–G–D–G–B–D (low to high).
An open-G tuning allows a G-major chord to be strummed on all six strings with neither fretting of the left hand nor a capo. Like other open tunings, it allows the eleven major chords besides G major each to be strummed by
barring
Barring may refer to:
* Barring (music), a guitar playing technique
* Barring engine, forms part of the installation of a large stationary steam engine
* Barring order, an order used by a court to protect a person, object, business, company, state ...
at most one finger on exactly one fret.
Open tunings are common in
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...
and
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...
,
and they are used in the playing of
slide and
bottleneck guitar
Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide) against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos tha ...
s.
Repetitive open-G tunings are used by Russian guitars,
Dobro guitar
Dobro is an American brand of resonator guitars, currently owned by Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar.
The Dobro was originally ...
s, and
banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
s. They repeat three open-string notes.
The repetitive open-G tuning
:D–''G''–B–D–''G''–B–D
:
is used by the
Russian guitar
The Russian guitar (sometimes referred to as a "Gypsy guitar") is an acoustic seven-string guitar that was developed in Russia toward the end of the 18th century: it shares most of its organological features with the Spanish guitar, although som ...
, which has
seven strings tuned mostly in triads, in contrast to other guitars, which are tuned mostly in fourths.
Dobro
Dobro is an American brand of resonator guitars, currently owned by Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar.
The Dobro was originally ...
s use a full six-string tuning with a bottom G: G–B–D–G–B–D, low to high. The two lowest strings are, accordingly, tuned three semitones higher for the lowest string (from E up to G) and two semitones higher for the second-lowest string (from A up to B) while the highest string is tuned two semitones lower (from E down to D), relative to
standard tuning
In music, standard tuning refers to the typical Musical tuning, tuning of a string instrument. This notion is contrary to that of scordatura, i.e. an alternate tuning designated to modify either the timbre or technical capabilities of the desired i ...
.
Five-string
banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
's standard tuning is also an Open G: g–D–G–B–D, where the lower case "g" denotes the highest-pitched "
drone string
In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. A drone may also be any part of a musical instrument used to produce this effect; an archai ...
", physically located next to (above) the lowest-pitched string, the first upper case "D".
Overtones of the fundamental note G
Bad Company
Bad Company are an English rock supergroup that was formed in 1973 by singer Paul Rodgers, guitarist Mick Ralphs, drummer Simon Kirke and bassist Boz Burrell.Bad Company ''AllMusic'' Peter Grant, who managed the rock band Led Zeppelin, also ...
guitarist
Mick Ralphs
Michael Geoffrey Ralphs (born 31 March 1944, Herefordshire) is an English musician, vocalist and songwriter, who was a founding member of rock bands Mott the Hoople and Bad Company.
Career
Ralphs began his career as a teenager, playing with b ...
has used another open-G tuning, which listed the initial six
overtone
An overtone is any resonant frequency above the fundamental frequency of a sound. (An overtone may or may not be a harmonic) In other words, overtones are all pitches higher than the lowest pitch within an individual sound; the fundamental i ...
s of the G note,
:G–G–D–G–B–D
:
for "Hey Hey" and while writing the demo of "Can't Get Enough".
The overtones tuning G–G–D–G–B–D was used by
Joni Mitchell
Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell ( Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American musician, producer, and painter. Among the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her sta ...
for "Electricity", "For the Roses", and "Hunter (The Good Samaritan)". Truncating this tuning to G-D-G-B-D for his five-string guitar,
Keith Richards
Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943), often referred to during the 1960s and 1970s as "Keith Richard", is an English musician and songwriter who has achieved international fame as the co-founder, guitarist, secondary vocalist, and co-princi ...
plays this overtones-tuning on
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...
' "
Honky Tonk Women
"Honky Tonk Women" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones. It was released as a non-album single on 4 July 1969 in the United Kingdom, and a week later in the United States (although a country version called "Country Honk" was ...
", "
Brown Sugar
Brown sugar is unrefined or partially refined soft sugar.
Brown Sugar may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* ''Brown Sugar'' (1922 film), a 1922 British silent film directed by Fred Paul
* ''Brown Sugar'' (1931 film), a 1931 ...
" and "
Start Me Up
"Start Me Up" is a song by the English rock band the Rolling Stones from their 1981 album ''Tattoo You''. Released as the album's lead single, it reached number one on Australian Kent Music Report, number two in Canada, number two on the ''Bi ...
". American rock band
Eagles of Death Metal
Eagles of Death Metal is an American rock band from Palm Desert, California, formed in 1998. Founded by Jesse Hughes (vocals, guitar) and Josh Homme (drums), the band also includes a wide range of other musicians who perform both on the band's ...
, uses this tuning for the majority of their songs.
See also
*
Minor thirds tuning
*
Scordatura
Scordatura (; literally, Italian for "discord", or "mistuning") is a tuning of a string instrument that is different from the normal, standard tuning. It typically attempts to allow special effects or unusual chords or timbre, or to make certain pa ...
, alternative tunings of stringed instruments
*
Stringed instrument tunings
Notes
References
*
*
PDF
Further reading
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Open G Tuning
Open tunings
Repetitive guitar-tunings