Open tunings are widely used in contemporary fingerpicking guitar. Ry Cooder, Leo Kottke and John Fahey are some popular guitar players who frequently use open tunings. An open tuning is when the open strings on the guitar are tuned to form a chord.
For example, the notes which make up the G major chord are G, B and D. If the first, fifth and sixth strings are lowered one tone (2 frets), the notes of the open strings are now D, G, D, G, B and D. All open strings now contain notes that are part of a G major chord. This is called open G tuning.
Progressive Open Tunings for Guitar covers the most popular open tunings used in modern guitar. The first section carefully and progressively introduces you to open tuning by detuning one string at a time. The first open tuning is dropped D tuning. This tuning only requires the sixth string to be altered.
The next tuning is dropped G tuning which requires the fifth string also to be detuned. The first real open chord tuning is then studied, open G tuning, which has the first string detuned as well.
At this stage you will be careful with the basic principle of open tuning and be ready to continue through to some of the other tunings covered in this book, open A, open D, open E, and open C tuning.
At the beginning of each section you will learn how to tune your guitar to the new tuning using a variety of methods. Each tuning section contains the popular basic chords and bar chords that are used with that tuning. Several basic examples are given for each tuning to introduce you to the tuning. Each section contains some great sounding solos that are played in the current tuning.
It will be helpful to have a basic knowledge of guitar before you tackle the examples in this book. Progressive Rhythm Guitar , Progressive Lead Guitar and Progressive Fingerpicking Guitar are recommended as introductory manuals to this book.
All examples are fun to play as well as being authentic and informative. Upon completion of this book you will have a thorough knowledge of open tuning fingerpicking guitar and will be able to make some great sounds in a fairly short time.
