This past year, I’ve been exploring nonstandard guitar tunings. It’s a rabbit hole that I’ve gone down and never want to be rescued from. They have opened up an entirely new way of playing. I’ve taken a particular liking to Open D, which is tuned as DADF#AD. I found a scale to use as my base point, then started finger picking and strumming my way through two and three finger chords (without having to barre, which I was very happy about).
I’ve been using this tuning to create a melody for a song which I wrote eighteen months ago. It’s only recently that I’ve finally got round to making the musical arrangement for it. I haven’t quite finalised the finger picking pattern, but it’s starting to take shape.
Here’s a tiny sample of Open D…
Due to the fact that alternative tunings take time to set up, I borrowed my partner’s spare guitar so I could tune it down to Open D and leave it as is, whilst I play in standard tuning on my main guitar. This saves the faff of de-tuning and re-tuning every day when I practice various songs. The guitar is a Baby Taylor which is nice and small for my short arms.
Along with alternative tunings, I’ve also been looking into resonator guitars. This isn’t so much for a blues and slide deep dive, but to add a different layer of texture to some of my own songs which have more of a folk leaning.