Introduction to Drop Tuning
If you’re getting into playing heavier music such as hard rock and metal, a great way to take your guitar down the heavier path is to look into drop tuning.
Drop tuning comes in a variety of forms but in it’s most simple form, it is dropping the pitch of the lowest string. In this lesson we’re going to focus on a tuning called Drop D.
Drop D is when you take standard tuning (Low to high, E A D G B E) and drop the low E string down a full tone to a D which gives you D A D G B E. This opens up a bunch of new possibilities. You can also retune the whole guitar to a lower version of standard, for example D G C F A D which is one whole step down, and drop the low string to C to give you Drop C (C G C F A D).
Here are a few simple tricks you can use in drop tunings to make your guitar sound huge!
One Finger Power Chords
In Drop D, you can play power chords with a single finger. This be cause, by dropping the pitch of the lowest string, the position that notes used to sit in are now 2 frets higher.
This is great for riff writing because you can move that one finger shape all around the neck.
Sus2 Barre Chords
Sus2 Barre chords are a great way to sound huge in a Drop Tuning. They are derived from the regular sus2 style D chord that you’d play in standard tuning which involves playing a D chord with the high E string open.
If you add the A and D strings in the lower register to this, you get this huge sounding chord.
It also works great for moody picked patterns.
Adding another 5th
Another great way to add some depth to your simple, one finger power chords is to add an additional 5th at the top of the chord. A power chord is typically made up of a 1, a 5 and an octave which is also a 1. In this method, you’d just stacking an additional 5 on top, essentially giving you a pair of power chords together.
This sits somewhere between a simple power chord and a sus2 style chord, but it’s great to strummed rock riffs.
