Getting Started with Altered Tunings: Drop D and DADGAD

Fingerstyle10 minRight-hand foundations · arranging · altered tunings · master styles

Half the magic of modern fingerstyle comes from “altered tunings” — retuning a few strings to different notes so the open strings ring out as one body of sound. Start with the easiest two to pick up: Drop D and DADGAD.

Video lessons are in production — follow the notes and practice checklist below and you'll learn it just fine.

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Why fingerstyle loves altered tunings

Three benefits: ① Open resonance — letting several open strings combine into one chord / one set of notes, so it plays like a wall of sound with built-in reverb; ② An open-string drone — leaving one open string ringing throughout, like the sustained low note of a bagpipe, which is exactly the “Celtic flavor” of DADGAD; ③ Easier fretting — a sound that's hard to fret in standard tuning might take just one finger after retuning. It's not for showing off; it serves the melody and harmony of a particular piece.

Master players like Kotaro Oshio, Andy McKee, and Masaaki Kishibe all use altered tunings extensively.

Drop D (lower only the 6th string)

The simplest altered tuning: just lower the 6th string from E by a whole step to D, leaving everything else, giving D-A-D-G-B-E. The bass extends down to D and gets thicker, a one-finger barre across the 6th/5th/4th strings makes a power chord, it's especially handy for fingerstyle in the keys of D and G, and getting back to standard is the quickest of all. It's the lowest-effort one to pick up, so I'd suggest it as your first altered tuning.

💡 Watching the tuner, slowly loosen the 6th string until it reads D (a whole step below its original E).

DADGAD (lower two more strings)

On top of Drop D, lower the 2nd string (B→A) and the 1st string (E→D) each by a whole step, giving D-A-D-G-A-D. Note that its bottom four strings (D-A-D-G) are exactly the same as Drop D, so learning it right after Drop D follows naturally.

The six open strings combine into Dsus4 — neither major nor minor, floating yet settled, the soul of modern fingerstyle and Celtic music; Andy McKee's “Drifting” uses it.

💡 Strictly speaking DADGAD isn't an “open tuning” (the open strings are Dsus4, not a major triad), but it's the best first step into the world of altered tunings.

Retuning in practice

Switch a clip-on tuner or an app to chromatic mode and turn each string to its target note one at a time. The strings you lower get looser in tension and softer to the touch; once you've retuned, the chord shapes all change and you have to relearn them. When you go back to standard tuning, the strings you raise tend to drift, so do two or three rounds of fine-tuning back and forth, then check the whole thing over once more.

⚠️ Common mistakes

Turning the pegs by feel — always use the chromatic mode on a tuner and tune to the target note names.
Forgetting that the chord diagrams all change once you've retuned — in an altered tuning, most of the chord diagrams you learned in standard tuning no longer work, and you have to relearn them.
Hopping back and forth between different tunings constantly — both the strings and the pitch need time to settle, so don't keep cranking the pegs one song at a time.

Open the tunerSwitch to chromatic mode and tune Drop D / DADGAD to the target note names.→

Practice checklist

Tune the guitar to Drop D and barre the 6th/5th/4th strings to feel the power chord's thick bass.
Tune to DADGAD and strum the six open strings to hear the “float” of Dsus4; then tune back to standard.