Guitar Tunings - Open

Open

An open tuning allows a chord to be played by strumming the strings when "open", or while fretting no strings. The base chord consists of at least 3 notes and may include all the strings or a subset. The tuning is named for the base chord when played open, typically a major chord, and all similar chords in the chromatic scale can then be played by barring exactly one fret. Open tunings are common in blues and folk music, and they are used in the playing of slide and bottleneck guitars. Ry Cooder uses open tunings when he plays slide guitar.

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Famous quotes containing the word open:

    Don: Why are they closed? They’re all closed, every one of them.
    Pawnbroker: Sure they are. It’s Yom Kippur.
    Don: It’s what?
    Pawnbroker: It’s Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday.
    Don: It is? So what about Kelly’s and Gallagher’s?
    Pawnbroker: They’re closed, too. We’ve got an agreement. They keep closed on Yom Kippur and we don’t open on St. Patrick’s.
    Billy Wilder (b. 1906)

    GOETHE, raised o’er joy and strife,
    Drew the firm lines of Fate and Life,
    And brought Olympian wisdom down
    To court and mar, to gown and town,
    Stooping, his finger wrote in clay
    The open secret of to-day.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    An open foe may prove a curse,
    But a pretended friend is worse.
    John Gay (1685–1732)