If you’re used to playing guitar in standard tuning and want to try something new, give open D tuning a try.  A new world will open up to you – playing all the open strings will result in a beautifully resonant and full-sounding D chord.  Just experimenting with a couple of easy movable chord shapes and hitting random open strings will instantly make you sound like a professional.  There’s no two ways about it, open D tuning just sounds amazing.

Open D is one of many alternative tunings and it’s been around for a long time.  Open tunings have long been used in Hawaiian music and are common in old acoustic blues music for example.  Players like John Fahey, Leo Kottke, Richie Havens, Joni Mitchell and, more recently, Laura Marling, Mumford and Sons and Ben Howard.

Some of the strings are de-tuned to achieve this:

Standard tuning:

E             A             D            G            B             E

Open D tuning:

D            A             D            F#           A             D

And this article will show you how to do it, depending on your level of skill and gadget access situation!

Method one – no gadgets but in possession of a good ear:

Assuming your guitar is in standard tuning, there are five steps below:

The guide notes are shown in red and the notes that need de-tuning are in blue.  The black one may or may not need tuning.

1. The guide note is the open 5^th The string that needs tuning down is the 6^th string.  You want to get it so the 7^th fret note sounds the same as the 5^th open string
2. The 5^th fret/5^th string is your guide note. The 4^th string should sound the same if your guitar was in tune to start with, but it’s worth checking.
3. Tune down the 3^rd string so it sounds like the 4^th string/4^th fret
4. Tune down the 2^nd string so it sounds like the 3^rd string/3^rd fret
5. Tune down the 1^st string so it sounds like the 2^nd string/5^th fret

Method 2 – no gadgets, but in possession of a very good ear:

1. Play the two open strings shown, back and forth. The 4^th string is the guide, the 6^th string needs to be tuned down, so that it is an octave lower than the 4^th  A bit harder to hear than two notes that are the same.
2. Same thing here – 4^th string guide note. 1^st string down so it sounds an octave higher than the 4^th string
3. As step two, but guide note is 5^th string; tune 2^nd string down to be an octave above.
4. Not an octave – just tune down 3^rd string to sound like 4^th fret/4^th

Pro method – no gadget, good ear and good harmonic technique!

Harmonics are shown with a circle below the note.

1. Play the 12^th fret harmonic on 6^th Tune it down to sound the same as open 4^th string guide note
2. Play harmonic at 12^th fret/4^th string for the guide note, and tune down 1^st string to sound the same.
3. The 7^th fret harmonic on the 6^th string is the guide note for the 12^th fret harmonic on the 5^th string
4. Play the open 2^nd string and tune it down so it sounds like the 12^th fret/5^th string harmonic.
5. Finally, play a normal 4^th fret note on 4^th string and tune down the 3^rd string to sound the same.

Using a clip-on tuner with chromatic setting

If using a chromatic tuner or tuner on the chromatic setting, you’ll see that when tuning down from E to D (for example), your tuner will go from E to D#, before getting to D.  Likewise, when going from B to A, you will have to go past A# before getting to A.

To get back into standard tuning:

Using a non-chromatic clip-on tuner

To do this, you need to outwit the tuner, which is a bit more complicated.  But, comparing your brain size to that of the tuner, the odds are definitely in your favour

1. Play the 6^th string at the twelfth fret – the tuner will think that you’re playing the 4^th (D) string and tell you it’s too high (sharp). Now tune the 6^th string down a little at a time; keep checking the twelfth fret note with the tuner.  Tune the 6^th string down sufficiently, and the tuner will be convinced that you’ve got the 4^th string in tune.
2. Next tune the 5^th and 4^th strings as normal.
3. Now play the 3^rd string at the 1^st The tuner will tell you that the 3^rd string is too high.  Tune it down, keep coming back to play the first fret until the tuner thinks that the first fret is actually the open 3^rd string.
4. Do the same thing as step 3 with the 2^nd string, but playing the 2^nd fret
5. And, likewise, with the 1^st string, use the 2^nd

With a guitar tuner app

There are a lot of guitar tuner apps out there.  Mostly free, they offer standard tuning, but often you have to pay to get alternative tunings, so if you want to use this tuning more, it could be worth getting a paid version, or one that offers open D free.

If the app features open D, you’d just put it on that setting and use it like a normal tuning.

If it offers chromatic tuning, the “using a clip on chromatic tuner” section in this article will work fine.

A couple more points:

It is worth checking the tuning of all the strings again once you’ve put the guitar in Open D or back to Standard, as the tension may alter during the process of tuning all the strings down or up.

If the strings on the guitar are old the thinner strings may break when tuning down or up.  If this is the case, it’s time to buy a new set of strings!