Open D minor tuning (DADFAD)

Open D minor: the strings and their notes

DADFAD from standard

What open D minor is

Open D minor, written DADFAD after its six notes, tunes the open strings to a D minor chord. From standard the 6th, 2nd and 1st strings go down a whole step, and the 3rd goes down a minor third, from G to F. It is open D with the 3rd string a semitone lower: F instead of F♯, minor instead of major.

Players also call it cross-note tuning, the name it had in the pre-war blues: Skip James recorded in open minor tunings, and the dark, open sound of his guitar comes from strings that ring a minor chord with nothing fretted. Today it turns up in folk and fingerstyle, and in ambient guitar where the drone matters more than the chords.

How to tune to Open D minor from standard

With the tuner above: tap Start, play each string the table changes and turn until the needle sits in the middle. By ear, without the tuner:

1. 6th string: E2 to D2. Its 7th fret should sound like the open 5th string (A2).
2. 2nd string: B3 to A3. The 4th string at its 7th fret (A3) should sound like this string open.
3. 1st string: E4 to D4. The 2nd string at its 5th fret (D4) should sound like this string open.
4. 3rd string: G3 to F3. The 4th string at its 3rd fret (F3) should sound like this string open.

Then check the whole tuning once more with the tuner: retuning one string moves the neck, and the others drift a few cents.

On the same strings, tension follows the square of the pitch: the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 6th strings keep 79 % of their pull. Slacker strings buzz and read flat at the attack; for more than a whole step down, a heavier set (or at least a heavier low string) keeps the feel.

What one finger plays

Strummed open, the strings ring Dm. A finger or a slide straight across the 5th fret gives Gm, across the 7th Am, and the 12th is Dm an octave up: the three chords of a blues in one straight line.

Playing in open D minor

• Minor and major in one move: fret the 3rd string at the 1st fret and the open strings ring D major again; that one note is the whole difference to open D.
• The 3rd string goes down three semitones, the biggest change in the tuning: tune it slowly, overshoot downward and come back up to F, so the string settles in the nut.
• Neither major nor minor: DADGAD, with G on the 3rd string and A on the 2nd.

All six strings in standard and the other tunings: the guitar tuner. Any note at all: the chromatic tuner.

Then play something

The notes you tuned can go into Brumm as a short melody over a beat. Hum a line on top and it becomes an instrument.

The microphone is read in the browser and nothing is kept. How the site counts visits.