One way to advance your skill as a guitar player is to experiment with alternate tunings. There are a variety of popular tunings that guitarists have utilized in all kinds of creative ways, adding new dimensions to the sounds they create. One of these ways is using “open” tunings, which involve tuning all six guitar strings so that all of the open notes together form the notes of a major chord.
In this lesson, we’ll focus on open E tuning. We’ll demonstrate how to tune to open E, discuss why you may want to experiment with alternate tunings, and review some examples of how open E tuning has been used in popular music.
Open tunings allow guitarists to strum all six open strings to play full chords. The E major chord is a powerful open chord, which already uses three open notes in standard tuning. To tune to open E, the other three strings are tuned up, either a whole step or half step.
Chord Clinic: Learn To Play 10 Interesting E Major Chord Variations
Open E tuning offers just a slight tweak on standard tuning, adjusting three of the strings to form an open E major chord across all six strings.
If you visualize an E major chord in open position, you’ll need to tune the 3rd, 4th, and 5th strings up so that the open notes of those strings become the notes that would normally be fretted for the E major chord.
For a starting point, here are the notes on a guitar in standard tuning: E (lowest string) -- A -- D -- G -- B -- E (highest string)
E Flat Guitar Tuning
In open E tuning, the standard G string would be tuned up one half step, to G#; the standard D string would be tuned up one whole step, to E; and the standard A string would be also be tuned up one whole step, to B:
Keep turning the peg and plucking the string until you reach the note B. Pro tip: The Online guitar tuner can help you tune your guitar to the correct note. You can use either the Electric Guitar Online Guitar Tuner or the Acoustic Guitar Online Tuner, or download the app to your phone. Both the web and app versions give you the ability to adjust your settings and tune specifically to open E and other alternate tunings. The string should have the same tone as the B string, although that string will be an octave higher.
Next, do the same thing with the 4th (D) string, tuning it up one full step to E. This should match the tone of both the 6th string (one octave lower) and the 1st string (one octave higher).
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If you’ve tuned correctly, you should be able to hear all the familiar notes of an E major chord when you strum across all six open strings. It’s possible you may have to go back and readjust some of the newly tuned strings, until your guitar adjusts to the new tension of these three strings.
Tuning your guitar to open E accomplishes a few different things. First, it allows you to play major chords at various points along the fretboard by simply barring your finger across any one fret. For this reason, it’s a popular tuning for slide guitar players.
Another reason why guitarists enjoy playing in open tunings is because it allows them to play different variations of chords that take advantage of the ringing of open strings. They can also easily play harmonics across the 5th, 7th, 12th frets that form pleasant-sounding major chords.
Ultimate Open E Tuning Resource: Chords, Songs, Tab, Pdf
Open E tuning can be used in many genres, but it has probably most often been put to use in rock and blues music.
Because E major is a frequently used key for blues, the open E tuning is often used by blues guitarists, particularly slide guitarists. Blues pioneers like Bo Diddley experimented with the tuning -- most notably heard on his self-titled tune, “Bo Diddley.”
Bridging the gap between rock and blues, The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards was a huge fan of open tunings, and he leaned heavily on the use of jangling open strings as part of his trademark style. Iconic songs like “Jumpin Jack Flash” and “Gimme Shelter” use open E and make use of lush chords and frequent hammer-on and pull-off fills.
C#9g# Guitar Chord (open E Tuning)
Bob Dylan was so enamored with open E tuning that he wrote his entire Blood on the Tracks album using the tuning (though some songs were later recorded using standard tuning). You can hear some of the beautiful chord voicings he was able to achieve with open strings on a song like “Shelter From the Storm.”
A more modern use of the tuning is on the Black Crowes’ 1990 hit single “She Talks to Angels, ” where the acoustic guitar moves freely between sections of melodic chords, sliding lead phrases, and carefully placed harmonics.
Branching out with alternate tunings can be a real challenge. It forces you to reimagine the fretboard and learn new sets of chord shapes. However, these tunings can open up new possibilities and expand the depth of sounds you can create on the guitar. Sometimes a new tuning can give a guitarist a completely fresh perspective and provide a new canvas on which to experiment. With a free trial of Play, you can work on mastering open E tuning, or a few useful open tunings, like open D or open G.Open E Tuning is a fun tuning to use on guitar as you’re able to play full open chords with a single finger or a guitar slide.
Open Tuning (mm May 86)
Once you read through this guide, check out my Ultimate Guide to Alternate Tunings to learn about other popular open tunings as well as some weird alternate tunings worth trying out.
If you want to try and use a guitar slide in Open E tuning, check out this lesson for some tips on how to get started.
Keep the Low E, High E, and B strings the same as Standard Tuning. Raise the A string a whole step to B and the D string to E. Raise the G string to G#.
Open D Guitar Chords
Use a good tuner and once you get through all six strings, go back and check the tuning again. Changing into an alternate tuning like Open E Tuning changes the tension on the neck, so you may need to make a few adjustments in tuning as the guitar neck settles to the new tension.
Keep in mind that some of the strings in this tuning are tuned higher than Standard Tuning. Adjust the tuning on those strings slowly to help prevent breaking any strings.
Raising the tuning on a string increases string tension, which may feel uncomfortable to play. So if you really enjoy playing in this tuning, you might consider changing to a lighter gauge of strings.
Open E Scale On Guitar: How To Tune For Beginners
The higher string tension when you change to Open E Tuning may also increase the action height on your guitar. This might be good or bad, depending on your playing style. If your guitar suddenly feels awkward to play, you may need to adjust the action height. Check out this guide to learn more about action height.
What makes open tunings like Open E fun to play is how easy some chord shapes are. You can play full chords with one finger, or you can slide back and forth between chords with a guitar slide.
This is why open tunings are so popular with slide players – you’re able to play a full chord across a single fret.
Fretboard Notes And Scales In Open E Tuning
To play an E Major chord, you simply strum the open strings. To play a G Major chord, flatten your finger across the third string.
If you haven’t learned how to play barre chords before this might feel awkward, but once you get the hang of pressing your finger across the strings, you’ll see why open tunings are so popular.
Some of the above chord shapes are moveable, which means you can shift them up the fretboard to find other minor chords.
Open Tuning Guitar
I suggest starting by learning the root note positions for each of the moveable chord shapes shown above. For example, the root note position for the Gm chord above is on the low E string. This means you can move this chord shape anywhere you want and the root note for the chord will always be on the sixth string.
To play a seventh chord in Open E tuning, simply start with the Major chord shape and raise the second string by three frets as shown below:
If you remember this pattern, you can easily change any Major chord in a chord progression to a seventh chord as you like.
Open G (dgdgbd) Guitar Tuning Chords
You can see that we get Gsus4 if we take the Esus4 shape and move it up to the third fret. Practice moving these two shapes up the fretboard to find other sus4 and sus2 positions.
Suspended chords are a great way to add something different to a chord progression, so take some time experimenting with adding one or two of these into a chord progression.
Here are some other easy chord shapes for Open E Tuning. Try coming up with chord progressions using a combination of the
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