Beginner question about Open G tuning

[Paul Douglas]

I know there have been a squillion questions about tunings, so I apologise for adding yet another. However, although I have searched through a lot of Open G threads, I haven't found an answer to this particular question.

I have often encountered the assertion regarding Open G that it's good to have a triad on the top 3 strings, and my question is: why? The closest I have come to an answer is a suggestion that it lends itself to more melodic improvising, but I don't understand why that should be the case: if you are in Open D tuning, you have the same triad one string down. I've also read that "some things" are easier with the triad on top but, again, nothing seems to say exactly what they are.

I'm asking because I'm tentatively considering switching from Open D to Open G. I'm a bit reluctant because I don't want to waste what I've learned so far, and everything I have done has been in Open D. The thing I really miss with OD is being able to play an open minor chord. As I understand it, using the DGDGBD version of Open G gives the possibility of changing the bottom D to an E, thus creating a G6 tuning that has both major and minor chords available, and that looks quite appealing, particularly as I could sort of ignore it for now but add it later without having to change anything I might have already learned.

The context for this possible change from OD to OG is: I'm a beginner and don't have all that much to lose by changing now. I'll only ever properly learn one tuning (at most!) - I'm long retired and mainly play woodwind instruments, so this is just for fun and not the start of a lifelong learning journey. I mostly want to play (delta) blues and Open G seems to be the most popular tuning in the genre. I did try C6 but it's not for me. I know there are people who tune to Open D minor, which would give me the minor chord sound that I crave (you can't play one on a clarinet!!) but it doesn't look like it's widely used so I assume I'd just swap one set of problems for another.

[Jim Pollard]

I don't play dobro all that often but I might try this just to shake things up. I do want to point out something I do on pedal steel all the time and also need to get accustomed to doing more of on dobro. Take for example your major G chord you already have. How different is that from an Em? Well, they share both G and B. In the context of a G chord then an Em can also be called a G6. To flip that a G Major could also be called an Em7 (because of that D). All of that to say this. Try just playing a G when when you see Em written. Or any time you see a minor chord play the related major chord. I do this all the time and enjoy the added sound palette (sp?).

[Paul Douglas]

Thanks for the suggestion - it made me think! Presumably I could do much the same in reverse: if I altered the tuning slightly to Open D minor, I could play the minor chord and just omit the 3rd string. The chord in the bass strings tends to sound major anyway. I'm playing on a 6-string lap steel btw, not a Dobro as such, though if I make sufficient progress to justify it I have thought of getting a square-neck resonator (my next birthday is a big number one, might as well cheer myself up with a new toy).

[Brooks Montgomery]

My advice is to stick with D. There’s lots of ways to play minor chords, including dropping the third string F# to F, but there are less limiting ways too.

https://youtu.be/dgJAySdtG2s?si=D60cZ-eRRQvfdZNO

Nice thing about D is you can also capo 2 and you then have an E neck and theres a lot of blues in E (and friendly fret navigating if you’re used to playing on a “standard” tuned upright guitar).

[Paul Douglas]

Thanks - I have subscribed to Lessons with Troy and done some of the Open D ones; I had had a quick look at his minor chords video but it seemed to involve a lot of slants and quite honestly I doubt if I'll ever be up to that. Missing out the third (going either way) seems like a much simpler option. I can't play guitar at all btw so there's no advantage for me from any tuning in terms of its similarity to anything I already know.

[Bill McCloskey]

It is easy enough to retune to from G to D using the same strings. Or just get a hipshot and switch between the two. Personally I found open D to be limiting and Open G to have endless possibilities. If you are playing dobro, I assume you have at least a passing interest in bluegrass, jerry douglas, Rob Ickes, Billy Caradine. All of these players have found all sorts of music and styles using good old G tuning and while they might slip into D tuning for a tune or two, the majority of their output is in G tuning. Unless you have a really really good reason for reinventing the wheel, I find it always pays to study what has stood the test of time.

[D Schubert]

The old open G (taropatch) and D (Sevastopol) bottleneck/blues tunings are both possible with medium gage strings, like the old Black Diamond Brand that might have been the only thing available at the time. I think that lap style players worked out a lot of their stuff with the same store-bought guitar sets for hi-bass G or hi-bass A. Somebody told me that bluesmen with higher voices preferred a G tuned guitar, lower voices favored D tuning, and some talented guys could toggle back and forth with ease. After many years of dabbling around with both, I find that I favor open D for bottleneck slide & singing, and open hi-bass G for backup and melodic playing on my lap. There are lots of techniques used to play (or play over) minor chords with these basic tunings. It's a big rabbit hole to explore.

[HowardR]

Tune your guitar to G B D F# A D (G maj9)........you'll have the best of both tunings plus a very strategic B minor triad (B D F#)........

[Paul Douglas]

Wow - I have looked at lots of open tuning suggestions but I don't think I have seen that one before, yet it seems pretty amazing as it's really 3 chords for the price of 1 given that there is a D major there as well. I have tuned a guitar to this and it seems like it has definite possibilities, and the minor chord is, as you say, strategically placed. Thank you very much!

[Fred Treece]

Tune your guitar to G B D F# A D (G maj9)........you'll have the best of both tunings plus a very strategic B minor triad (B D F#)........

It’s a decent single-note tuning too, if you think of it as a D6 (Bm7) type with a low 4 (b6). For me, all the great open-string G tuning dobro licks are gone, though.

[HowardR]

all the great open-string G tuning dobro licks are gone, though.

Yup, in the world of steel guitar, anytime you change something to gain something........you lose something........

[Paul Douglas]

all the great open-string G tuning dobro licks are gone, though.

Yup, in the world of steel guitar, anytime you change something to gain something........you lose something........

In steel guitar.... and life in general really. In this case, though, as I don't know any Dobro licks, it's not an issue. Oddly, to my ear at least, I find that the D triad sounds better without the addition of the top D, so maybe that answers my initial question too about why having a triad on top was a good thing. Anyway, as I said, I'm really grateful for the info about this tuning: I think Gmaj9 and I are going to get along!

[Fred Treece]

In steel guitar.... and life in general really. In this case, though, as I don't know any Dobro licks, it's not an issue. Oddly, to my ear at least, I find that the D triad sounds better without the addition of the top D, so maybe that answers my initial question too about why having a triad on top was a good thing. Anyway, as I said, I'm really grateful for the info about this tuning: I think Gmaj9 and I are going to get along!

There’s nothing odd about feeling that way about it. All the other intervals in the tuning are major or minor 3rds, from low to high, until you get to that big jump on top. The perfect 4th is wider and it ain’t as pretty as the others. It is just as useful as the other intervals though, and you’ll be glad to have it. Good luck with the tuning - I believe it was a favorite of the Forum’s founder, Bobby Lee.

[Paul Douglas]

There’s nothing odd about feeling that way about it. All the other intervals in the tuning are major or minor 3rds, from low to high, until you get to that big jump on top. The perfect 4th is wider and it ain’t as pretty as the others. It is just as useful as the other intervals though, and you’ll be glad to have it.

I've done a fair bit of music theory but, only playing a monophonic instrument, the stuff about chords is a bit lacking in context; what you say makes sense though. The jump didn't sound as strange in Open D but presumably that's at least partly because it's echoing the chord on the bottom 3 strings.

Good luck with the tuning

Thank you!

I believe it was a favorite of the Forum’s founder, Bobby Lee.

That's interesting, I feel I'm following a worthy path.

Just an aside: I'm new to steel guitar and obviously new to this forum but so far it has been great - very helpful and nobody snaps at you for asking stupid questions. I've learned a lot already.

[BJ Burbach]

Paul, you got that right! This place is just full of the greatest players and the finest people on the internet.
Hang around here and you will likely get lost in the tuning woods for a year or three and maybe wake up one day and decide to really learn a couple.
What a blast!

Here's a relevant favorite;
viewtopic.php?p=1959219

BJ

[Lee Rider]

I put the Hipshot Doubleshot on my dobro and tune from GBDGBD to GBDFAC for a G11 and find that it really opens up many chordal possibilities.

[Peter Jacobs]

Great question to be asking early on, Paul! I play in high bass Open G because I’ve been playing banjo a lot longer than steel. I’ve tried D, but it’s never felt natural to me. The high D first string just makes sense to me as a banjo player.

In G, I find I almost never use the low B. I sometimes retune to low-bass G, but I like having the low G on the outside string. For minors, I will only “pinch” 2 or 3 strings. The rest of the band is filling in the rest of the chord, so it works in context.

Keep at it and keep discussing your musical journey here — I’ve learned a ton from the players on this forum.

[Paul Douglas]

Paul, you got that right! This place is just full of the greatest players and the finest people on the internet.
Hang around here and you will likely get lost in the tuning woods for a year or three and maybe wake up one day and decide to really learn a couple.
What a blast!

Here's a relevant favorite;
viewtopic.php?p=1959219

BJ

BJ: I've been on some forums where people are basically just rude (one of my favourites incidents was posting a query - a long time ago - about getting a CD player working on a Sun computer and the first reply said that anyone working in such an environment shouldn't want to be listening to music!) but this one is very nice and, as I said, I've learned a lot just browsing around. It clearly hosts some very talented people. I looked at the thread you linked to: a blast indeed! There are just so many possibilities, and although I think I might never progress beyond a minimal ability with just one tuning, it's nice to think there could always be something more.

I put the Hipshot Doubleshot on my dobro and tune from GBDGBD to GBDFAC for a G11 and find that it really opens up many chordal possibilities.

Lee: I've seen the hipshot, it's on one of Troy Brenningmeyer's videos, and looks pretty amazing. I'm currently playing around not just with finding a good tuning, but with building a lap steel - just working on one now that is the first to move beyond a 2x4 plank. Maybe one day I'll try to make one that incorporates the hipshot.

[Paul Douglas]

Great question to be asking early on, Paul! I play in high bass Open G because I’ve been playing banjo a lot longer than steel. I’ve tried D, but it’s never felt natural to me. The high D first string just makes sense to me as a banjo player.

In G, I find I almost never use the low B. I sometimes retune to low-bass G, but I like having the low G on the outside string. For minors, I will only “pinch” 2 or 3 strings. The rest of the band is filling in the rest of the chord, so it works in context.

Keep at it and keep discussing your musical journey here — I’ve learned a ton from the players on this forum.

Peter: Thank you! I have indeed learned a lot from this forum already and I'm only getting started. I also like having the bottom string as a G - it feels more useful somehow because it's closer in pitch to the other strings so a more natural part of a melodic line. Not sure that's quite the right way to put it. Troy (as in Lessons With) doesn't seem to be a big fan of a low D string: he called it "floppy" on a lesson I watched a few days ago, and that's on his Duesenberg, no less. I tried the low E G6 to get a minor chord but the bottom string nearly always sounded slightly out of tune somehow. I was playing around with a chord sequence that ended on a G chord yesterday and it sounded really nice ending on the G triad on the three low strings.

Honestly, I haven't had this much fun with a musical instrument in years!

[Rich Ertelt]

Lot to unpack here. I don't play a lot of dobro, but I play a LOT of slide. And Pedal steel. And used to play a lot of lap/console steel.

Delta stuff, I'd lean more open G. It is the most common, though some guys did use open E.
I use open E on my electric on gigs, as the stuff I'm playing just works with open E. Think Elmore or ABB type stuff. I can emulate open G using a capo on the 3rd fret, and staying away from the high E (now G) string - or mixing it in for open E sounds.

The thing is, they way its played, open E and open G just sound different. They lend themselves to different licks. I just play differently on E from G.

One thing I did do for a while - open G6. The exact same tuning as C6 (the one with the G on top that is used a lot in western swing) down a 4th. Add the 6th on the 4th string, moving the others down. You lose the usually not used much low E. I did this on slide guitar for years, you get all the delta type licks by skipping over that string, plus a ton of other stuff using it.

As far as minors, for the most part you are looking at partial chords. I can't think of any big minor chords in an open major tuning. At least without slants. There are some tunings that might lean more that way, that you would need to explore. There are pages out there with tons of open tunings to try.

[Fred Treece]

Regarding the “Gmaj9” tuning, it’s not that big of a deal to down-tune strings 2 and 3 from regular open G. You can have both. There are no downsides, just different upsides.

Listen to Greg Booth talk briefly about standard G tuning, starting at about 0:40:00
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bzaWakuNZ ... wAo7VqN5tD
He also has an armful of videos that demonstrate the G tuning’s versatility. As far as I know, the only alternate tuning he uses is dropping low G down to E.

I don’t really use the dobro/resonator guitar for chordal playing. There are ways to imply all kinds of chords with double stops, and of course major triads and inversions can imply relative minor 7ths. I have enough of a challenge sticking with one tuning and trying to make the most of it with the single-note style melodic playing that drew me to the instrument in the first place.

[BJ Burbach]

I was going to say something deep, but I am trying to play more and post less right now.
What I will say, is that we should all try to buy from the steel forum store and maybe even hit the donate button every once in awhile,
just to keep the lights on. This treasure trove of posting history surely takes up server space. I also thank the admins for their never ending work.
Now, back to my C6th studies,
BJ

[Paul Douglas]

One thing I did do for a while - open G6. The exact same tuning as C6 (the one with the G on top that is used a lot in western swing) down a 4th. Add the 6th on the 4th string, moving the others down. You lose the usually not used much low E. I did this on slide guitar for years, you get all the delta type licks by skipping over that string, plus a ton of other stuff using it.

Does that mean you end up with G-B-E-G-B-D? That looks similar to the Gmaj9 in having both a major and a minor chord there but is more "G centric" because of having the G chord on the top, rather than the D chord you get with the 9 tuning. I suppose that way you get to keep G licks (though as I said, I don't know any). I will play around with both for a few days, see if one feels more natural than the other. Thanks for the info.

[Rich Ertelt]

Yes

[Peter Jacobs]

Honestly, I haven't had this much fun with a musical instrument in years!

Best thing I’ve heard in ages, Paul!