Guitar Tunings - Standard and Alternatives - Alternative

Alternative

Alternative ("alternate") tuning refers to any open-string note-arrangement other than standard tuning. Such alternative tuning arrangements offer different chord voicing and sonorities. Alternative tunings are common in folk music, where the guitar emulates indigenous instruments with distinct drones and sound. Alternative tunings necessarily change the chord shapes associated with standard tuning, which eases the playing of some non-standard chords at the cost of increasing the difficulty of some standard chords.

Some tunings are used for particular songs by professional musicians, and may be called after the song's title. There are hundreds of such tunings, which are often minor variants of established tunings. Fewer alternative tunings are used regularly by communities of guitarists, who share a musical tradition, such as American folk or Celtic folk music.

The hundreds of alternative tunings have been classified into a smaller number of categories: open, both major and minor (cross note), miscellaneous ("special"), modal, dropped, instrumental (based on other stringed instruments), and regular.