Hey Friend,

If you’re here in the States, just a friendly reminder…

Federal taxes must be filed by Tuesday, April 17th! If you need more time, file an extension, but get it done. 

What the “H - E - double hockey sticks” does this have to do with guitar,” you might ask?

Well, technically nothing. 

But if you’re sitting around, worrying about taxes or the Feds sending you a nice little invitation to meet with them, you’re not going to be thinking about…

Or playing your guitar…

You're gonna be thinking about taxes. And that just ain’t right!

So this is a PSA (Public Service Announcement) from your friendly neighborhood guitar weirdo...

Shifting gears, ever set your guitar up with an alternate tuning?

Charlie sent me an email earlier this week with a question about playing in Open G.

I had never used this tuning, so I set my guitar up in Open G and messed around with it for a while. I found that it is a tuning I’ll be experimenting with more in the future.

For the most part, what I teach you is done in standard tuning (from the sixth to the first, the strings are tuned to E A D G B E). Think of standard as your foundation in both guitar and music. 

But with open tunings, you tune your string to a specific chord.

Open G is tuned D G D G B D.

What happens is, as you strum the strings in this tuning, you are playing a G chord without needing to put any fingers on the strings. Barre all six string at different frets and you end up playing the major chord at that fret.

For example, if you barred all six strings at the second fret, you’re now playing an A major chord.

The real magic starts to happen when you start trying out chord shapes - like playing an E or A shape on the fingerboard. 

There’s an infinite array of sounds you can find when you decide to move beyond the basics, and open tunings can help you do that.

I definitely suggest you try some out, and here’s a list of open/alternate tunings to help you get started.

Hope you have a great day - we’re getting ready for a nice big storm, so it’ll be a good day for chillin’ inside. In fact, anyone on the East Coast of the US is gonna see weather today, so be safe.

Rock on!

Peace~

Dave