🦋 Drop-D Tuning
I've been meaning for a while to post a note about drop-D guitar tuning. If you aspire to play finger-style blues guitar, I think this tuning is one of the first things you should find out about. (The other first thing you should find out about, is to get some recordings of Mississippi John Hurt, a master of the genre and IMO the most accessible of the Delta blues guitarists.) By finger-style blues I mean basically, picking alternating bass notes with your thumb or a thumb pick and a melody line with your first, first and second, or first through third fingers. Drop-D is the simplest of the alternate tunings, all you do is tune the top string down a whole step. All the other strings have their standard pitch. You don't need to learn much in the way of new fingerings, but you suddenly have a lot more freedom. Here are the first-position chords (I play in first position just about all the time): C No difference. D No difference, except that the top string is your root. In standard tuning I am usually fingering an F# on the top string with my thumb, now I can just leave it open and pick an alternating bass between the top string and the third string. E Hold down G# on the fourth string with your first finger and E on the third string with your second finger. Leave the second string open (and never play it) and hold down E on the top string with your thumb. Now you can pick an alternating bass between the top string and third string, and two fingers are available for melody stuff. F Barre the bottom two strings on the first fret with your first finger. Hold down A on the fourth string with your second finger and F on the third string with your third finger. Leave the second string open (and never play it) and hold down F on the top string with your thumb. Now you can pick an alternating bass between the top string and third string, and one finger is available for melody stuff. (Note that you can move this barre chord up and down the fingerboard as you desire.) G G is where things get wild -- All you need to do for G is hold down the fifth fret of the top string with your thumb, all four fingers are available for melody stuff. You're pretty free to roam between the third and sixth frets of the treble strings, and throw in open strings (except for the bottom string) as desired. A No difference. B No difference. (Actually I usually finger B7 in first position, you can do either one.) I discovered this tuning while working on "Stagger Lee", since then I have used it on a lot of other songs in the key of D -- lately I noticed it would work well for songs in G too, and yesterday I worked out "Lay me a Pallet on your Floor", which is in C and sounds very nice indeed in this tuning. And the other day I tried playing "Prodigal Son" (in E) in drop-D and though it took a little while to get the hang of it (partly because I've been playing that song for such a long time in standard tuning), it ended up sounding really nice too.
posted afternoon of Saturday, February 21st, 2004
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