Strumming Patterns is a free lesson series by Vicki Genfan previewing the material covered in her upcoming course, 30 Strumming Patterns You MUST Know. Check out Vicki’s other courses, and be sure to subscribe for more free lessons to come!
Welcome to the world of Open Tunings! For this lesson, we’ll work in the tuning D-A-D-G-A-D. This one is very commonly used in Celtic music – but look at this list of amazing guitarists that also use it!
Luka Bloom, Stan Rogers, Jimmy Page, Artie Traum, Pierre Bensusan, Eric Roche, Laurence Juber, Tony McManus, Bert Jansch, Richard Thompson, Dick Gaughan, Alistair Hulett, Soig Siberil, Gilles Le Bigot, Imaad Wasif, Jeff Tweedy, Masaaki Kishibe, Paul McSherry, Kotaro Oshio, Ben Chasny, Al Petteway, and Trey Anastasio….. and now – YOU!
The chords we’re playing are simple – but with the voicings that we get in DADGAD, there are some beautiful ‘close’ intervals that add a depth and color to them. The ‘basic’ chords are as follows: Bm7-Em7-Asus A- D. Here’s what happens when we play these simple chords in this tuning:
GMa9/B-Em9sus4- D11(with 3rd)/A11- Dsus4(with 3rd).
So if Open tuning is new to you, enjoy this…. if it’s old hat, you can skip all that stuff and head right to the strumming pattern. We’ll focus on the difference between using the ‘left hand’ muting to make the pattern more choppy and rhythmic, vs using less of the muting to keep it ‘open and flowing’. This is an important skill set for you to master, so make sure you have it down.
If you want to have even more fun, play along with someone who’s in Standard tuning doing the same progression. Listen to how cool it is to use an open tuning this way.