The Encyclopedia Of Alternate Guitar Tunings

Joni Mitchell, Kei­th Richards, Robert John­son, Ani DiFran­co, and Bob Dylan. What do they have in com­mon? For one, they’ve exper­i­ment­ed with alter­nate gui­tar tun­ings, going beyond the stan­dard EADGBE tun­ing most com­mon­ly used by musi­cians. Kei­th Richards used the Open G tun­ing (GDGBD) to write some of the Stones’ clas­sic tracks–“Honky Tonk Woman,” “Brown Sug­ar,” “Beast of Bur­den,” “Gimme Shel­ter,” “Hap­py,” and “Start Me Up.” Try play­ing them in a stan­dard tun­ing and they’ll nev­er sound quite right.

If you’re a gui­tarist look­ing for a dif­fer­ent sound, spend some time with War­ren Allen’s Ency­clo­pe­dia of Alter­nate Gui­tar Tun­ings. It’s a handy resource. First cre­at­ed in 1997, this vin­tage web page presents a library of uncon­ven­tion­al tun­ings, com­plete with a list of songs where they were artis­ti­cal­ly put to use. Enter the Ency­clo­pe­dia here.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ste­vie Ray Vaugh­an Plays the Acoustic Gui­tar in Rare Footage, Let­ting Us See His Gui­tar Vir­tu­os­i­ty in Its Purest Form

Jimi Hen­drix Plays the Delta Blues on a 12-String Acoustic Gui­tar in 1968, and Jams with His Blues Idols, Bud­dy Guy & B.B. King

B.B. King Changes Bro­ken Gui­tar String Mid-Song at Farm Aid, 1985 and Doesn’t Miss a Beat