Guitar tunings#Open

An open atmosphere (English: open tuning ) is a mood of stringed instruments, in which the empty ( "open" ) strings form a single chord.

In an open atmosphere in addition to the fundamental tone and its octave just fifths and thirds maximum still happen, so that when you hit the open strings playing a simple major or minor chord is formed. The instrument receives thereby a particularly rich sound; Moreover, such a mood allows special playing techniques.

Open tunings found in some stringed instruments as normal mood (eg, from the family of Cistern ), with other instruments, however, only as Scordatura (ie change in standard tuning, eg guitar ). In the latter case, many guitarists prefer the English term " open tuning ".

Open tunings for guitars as Scordatura

Of great importance were open tunings since the end of the 19th century, when Hawaii guitarists her songs arranged in the " Slack Key " technique. Slack Key describes the fingerpicking in open tunings. At the beginning of the 20th century there were, especially in the United States a great interest in the Hawaiian music and therefore the type of guitar playing with the Slide (English for slide ). The Hawaiian guitarist playing her guitar while seated and placed them here on the thighs. By the guitarists ( a rounded piece of metal ) glided to the slide over the strings, they achieved novel, attractive sound moments (see also slide guitar and bottleneck ).

But the open tuning is not only used for slide guitar, but is in modern fingerpicking, in Celtic and Irish music as well as in rock music an invigorating for the guitarist element that opens up new possibilities on the guitar the guitar player, even if he at the Open Tuning is forced to learn new fingerings of the handles. There are now for the Open Tuning commercially chord diagrams for each chord, for scales ( as the basic pattern for solos and licks ) and intervals.

Theory

When playing with Open Tuning the key of the piece is usually the reason chord that has the open tuning. If the guitar tuned eg in open- G tuning, so the piece is usually played in G major. So ( basic chord ) is open every mood of the tonic chord on the ungegriffenen strings, the dominant chord on the 7th fret as a whole Barre and the subdominant also as a whole Barre on the 5th fret.

There is also with the help of Barre handles even the possibility of chromatic chords to move anywhere above. Thus we find in the open D tuning on the 2nd fret of the E major chord on the 3rd fret of the F- major chord on the 5th fret of the G- major chord, etc.

Examples

The standard tuning of a guitar is: E - A - d - g - h - e '

When E- tuning only the pitch of all strings is compared to the D- Tuning higher by a tone, which is changing the chord names, but the game play does not change. All chords, scales and intervals are determined by D- tuning on the E- Tuning transferable. The same applies to A- G tuning and tuning.

More scordaturas

Scordaturas whose open strings do not make (simple) major or minor chord, are also counted as open tunings. These include for example:

  • D- A-D -E- A-D ' ( DADGAD )
  • D -A -d -g -h -e ' (Dropped D tuning )
  • C -G -c -f -a- d ' (Dropped C / D tuning )
  • Dadaa -d '(only root, fifths and octaves).

Boundaries of open tunings

When selecting the correct open tunings also bauartliche limits must be observed. Thus, an acoustic guitar is not recommended with thick strings (> 12 set) due to the high stress on the bass strings and the guitar neck from E- and A- tuning.

Open tunings at Cistern

Most of the instruments of the family of Cistern ( eg forest zither, guitar English ) are tuned in open atmosphere. This is not a Scordatura, but the standard tuning of these instruments. The open atmosphere leads to the full rich sound of these instruments and was one of the reasons why the cittern since the Renaissance period as well as for beginners easy to learn folk instrument found widespread use ( as opposed for example to the lute ).

Due to the different designs in this instrument family, the number choirs and the exact moods are different.

Examples of open tunings at Cistern:

  • Cc - ee - gg - c'c ' - e'e ' - g'g ' ( sechschörig ) → C Major
  • Cc - gg - c'c ' - e'e ' - g'g ' ( fünfchörig ) → C Major
  • Cc - gg - c'c ' - es'es ' - g'g ' ( fünfchörig ) → C minor

Special playing techniques

Among the special playing techniques that are made possible by an open atmosphere, is one of the Bordunspielweise ( the low strings are used as drone strings ), the " Slack Key " technique, the technique of slide guitar and bottleneck technique.

A well-known example of a played in open tuning guitar piece is the hole in the Banana by Klaus Weiland.

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