Für Edith

Bottleneck slide, Travis picking, open D tuning, 12-bar blues.

Video

Open D tuning

D-A-D-F#-A-D (low to high)

…hint: it's a D major chord

Nothing quite beats that deep low down dirty blues sound of open D tuning. The guitar is tuned to the same pitch as an open D major chord (D, F#, A), but unlike open G tuning the root of the chord is on the sixth string (lowest string). This opens up some great opportunities for some real deep and dirty sounding blues.  Open D is an extremely popular open tuning for slide guitar. Being used by some of those old blues cats such as Elmore James, Tampa Red & Kokomo Arnold, even modern day artist such as Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell made use of this tuning.