Explore the Freedom of Modal Tunings

Sweeping chords, shimmering harmonic chimes, and haunting raga drones are relatively simple to render on an open-tuned acoustic, yet many players never venture from standard tuning—mainly due to comfort-zone conformity. Once you detune those pegs, the fretboard becomes unfamiliar. But that’s the beauty of modal tunings where no string is tuned to the major or minor third. Suddenly, there are essentially no “wrong” notes, and you’re free to explore the fretboard like never before. I’ve chosen a couple of options that are easy to access, and sure to inspire.

Starting from standard, you can easily get to a dynamite-drone A tuning. Drop the second string a whole step from B to A, and then raise the fourth string a whole step from D to E. Finally, drop the third string a step and a half from G to E, matching the same E as the raised fourth string. From low to high, the tuning is E, A, E, E, A, E. This is actually an A5 tuning, and the fifth string is primary (much the same way the root of open G tuning is on the fifth string). Mute the sixth string, and give a Townshend-style strum to hear a monstrous A power chord. Play a barre chord at the second fret for a big B, and use this and similar moves to thicken up any rock song in the key of A. Or, drop the chordal ideal altogether, and explore myriad fingerpicking paths.