How to Open Tune the Guitar

I was recently asked how to Open tune the guitar so thought I'd post it in case anyone's interested....

OK..I'm going to give you tuning for Dmajor which you'll find easier to use. I have a musician, an old friend who is a guitar teacher who argues that it is Cmajor,
however I say it is in Dmajor, and I'm sticking to my guns.

First play the chord of Dmajor. Now take the first string, play the D and
remember that note and tune the first string up to that note.
Take the second string, play the G and take the second string up to that note.
Follow suit with the third string.Play the A and take it up to that note.

Now, take the 6th string down and with your thumb and index finger pull the E
string and the D string together and take the E string down to the octave of
the D. It only goes down a couple of frets.

Now retune by playing the strings open and fine tune until you find that the
whole open-tuning is in the D chord. You may have to tweak some of the strings
to fine tune them.

A word of caution, whilst tuning, if you're strings are heavy gauge or over 10
or 11 gauge, be careful on this tuning because tuning up the G to an A puts a
lot of strain on the strings. Years ago before I used D'Addarios I had many
string breaks. However, I compensated for this by first tuning the guitar down
in normal tuning two frets, which would be a quarter octave, which is fine for
the guitar you are playing, but if you want to play with any other guitar you
have to compensate because you're no longer in concert tuning.

The strings I use today are – D’Addario EZ890 .009-.045 Superlight, for my
accoustic guitar. These may be too light for some people but with the style of
music I play, and with the equipment that I go through I find them ideal, a
superb string. They accomplish the open tuning effortlessly, they're fine.

I use different open tunings, Aminor, Cminor and a Bminor, but normally with
the Bminor I like to use a capo on the 2nd fret because it gives more
resonance, brightness to the sound.

Each time you change your tuning it puts a whole new perspective on playing, and you have to re-learn the positions for the different tunings.

Cool, give it a whirl guys!!
Chris Dair