￥The resonance, bass response, and chord coloring possible with open tunings not only produce a lusher, more dynamic sound from your guitar, they also greatly expand your palette of creative options when composing original songs, arranging cover tunes, or just jamming with friends.

 

In this Open D edition of Acoustic Coffeehouse, Ellis Paul teaches you 64 open D chord shapes and voicings, which form 8 versatile chord scales in the tuning. You’ll be able to mix any combinations of them in your grooves and arrangements, you can strum or fingerpick them, and Ellis shows you how to easily embellish them to pull out harmony notes, guitar hooks, fills, and melody lines.

 

”Joni Mitchell, Steven Stills, Curtis Mayfield, Keith Richards, Mississippi John Hurt, Jimmy Page, Duane Allman, and Robert Johnson are just a few of the artists that have incorporated open tunings into their music. There are so many benefits to using an open tuning and I’ll demonstrate all of them in this Open D edition of Acoustic Coffeehouse.

 

We’ll explore the resonance of the droning strings in an open tuning; how open tunings simplify the neck of the guitar for chord shapes; how you can visualize chord formations more like a piano; how the harmony strings and octave strings are easy to access and ride against the resonance of the ringing strings; how bass lines are more resonant because the low E is tuned down to D, and how percussiveness is increased by the floppier tension on the down-tuned strings.”

 

In the first section of the course, Ellis guides you through a thorough primer on Open D tunings including What is an Open Tuning, Benefits of Open Tunings, Open D Tuning, Major & Minor Chord Barre, Scales on All Six Strings, and Octave Shapes.

 

Chord scales and chord voicings are focused on in the second section of the course. For each of the Chord Scales, Ellis will teach you all of the scale’s chord shapes and then show you a variety of creative applications you can access within the shapes and scales.

 

In the third and final section, you’ll apply your Open D chord vocabulary and all of the creative applications by learning three full-length songs; Innocence and The Afterlife, Maria’s Beautiful Mess, and The Storyteller’s Suitcase. Ellis will first perform the song and then break down all of the parts (intro, verse, bridge, chorus, etc.) move by move.