OPEN 101 • How to Tune Your Guitar to Open G Tuning

This lesson shows you how to tune your guitar to Open G tuning, which from low to high (in pitch) is D-G-D-G-B-D. When playing a G chord using the open strings (or the related ‘one finger’ bar chords), you generally want to leave the 6th string out of the voicing as it sounds muddy. Keith Richards went so far as to take the 6th string off his guitar when playing in Open G, though when playing slack key or fingerstyle you will use the 6th string (i.e. for a D or D7 chord) and thus want to keep it on the guitar. Open G is often called “Taro Patch” tuning by slack key guitar players, and most slack key songs – especially traditional ones – are in Taro Patch or a close variant.