Acoustic Blues In Three Tunings

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For this perfect follow-on to Jon’s 50 Tips feature, which hopefully whetted your appetite for all things open-tuned, we will be looking in depth at three excellent tunings to lift your acoustic blues.

Open tunings are often perceived to be a fairly recent innovation, having enjoyed a steady rise in popularity since the 1990s. Of course back in the ‘60s rock and folk musicians were experimenting with open tunings, but even they were not the first. In fact, most of the open tunings in use today can be traced back to the early days of Delta blues and its pioneers. These musicians were solo performers, so open tunings made self-accompaniment easier, they were fuller and louder sounding, plus they facilitated the use of slide technique and simple fingerings.