You mean apart from the fact that I got nowhere with it personally? :) There's no beef at all, actually - there
a probably more similarities than differences between standard tuning and open-D. Heck there's even string duplication
(A and D). Many riffs can be transposed from one to the other (think about it - D,G,B is a major chord, as any
standard tuned slide player will tell you).
Clearly standard tuning can be mastered - as proven countless times, by the masters! ....and all the other satrianis
you admire at the local music store.
If I have a beef, it's really with myself - why the heck can't I do it - why can't I play guitar beyond the one-finger-on-the-third-fret-of-my-high-E-string-to-create-a-G-chord
phase? Why can I only get the first three notes of that Chuck Berry lick? THAT's my beef.
Occasionally I do switch over to standard tuning, thinking, hey, I'm a pretty good guitar player now, maybe the lightbulb
will come on in standard tuning.
It never does.
So I switch right back to open-D.
Which brings me to the theme of today's entry (if in a roundabout way): Tuning back and forth between standard
guitar tuning and open-D is pretty darn easy, for those of you out there who are considering trying open-D (or Guitar-eze
specifically), but fear the re-tuning process.
Consider that you have string duplication as mentioned above. So your A and D strings stay the same. Now,
consider that in open-D you have three Ds and two As. That's internal string duplication - i always start with that
middle D that's in standard too, and tune my high D and low D to it. That makes 4 out of 6 strings tuned fairly easily.
Now the high A string matched to your standard tuning low A. Which leaves the F# for last - a simple semitone lower
for your G string.
As for tuning back to standard, well... if you must... :)
Remember the A and D string commonality - start from there. Bring your low D back up to low E (which is just like
adjusting drop-D tuning), and you're half way there. That allows you to adjust your high D string from your low E, and
the remaining strings using the old finger on the fifth and fourth fret technique.
So there's no beef with standard tuning.. They're actually good friends and neighbors. Standard tuning is welcome
to play in our open-D backyard any time it likes.
