Slide Tuning: Open D#sus4

This tuning, officially known as Open D#sus4 Tuning, is specifically designed for slide guitar, offering a unique tonal palette ideal for blues, roots music, and expressive lead playing. The open strings resonate together to form a rich, complex chord, making it effortless to achieve droning sounds and fluid melodic lines with a slide.

Technical Analysis:

The open strings are tuned to D#3, A#3, D#4, G#4, G#4, D#5 (low to high). Analysing these notes reveals a D#sus4 chord: D# (Root), G# (Perfect 4th), and A# (Perfect 5th). This gives the tuning a distinctive, slightly ambiguous, and bluesy quality compared to a standard major or minor open tuning.

The intervals from the lowest D# are:

• String 6: D# (Root)
• String 5: A# (Perfect 5th)
• String 4: D# (Octave)
• String 3: G# (Perfect 4th)
• String 2: G# (Perfect 4th)
• String 1: D# (Octave)

The repeated G# notes on the 3rd and 2nd strings create a powerful resonance, while the D# and A# provide a solid root and fifth foundation. This configuration allows for easy access to open voicings and power chords by simply barring across any fret.

Chords and Playability:

When strummed open, the guitar produces a full D#sus4 chord. This 'suspended' quality provides a great starting point for blues and folk compositions. Due to its open nature, moving a slide across any fret will instantly transpose the D#sus4 chord to another sus4 chord (e.g., barring at the 1st fret yields an Fsus4, 2nd fret an F#sus4, and so on). While traditional major or minor chords (e.g., D# Major: D# G A#) require specific fretting to alter the G# notes, the strong intervals of Root and Fifth are always present, making it excellent for single-note slide melodies and two- or three-string power chords.

How to Tune:

To achieve this tuning, start from standard E-A-D-G-B-e tuning (specifically, E3 A3 D4 G4 B4 E5 for this octave range) and adjust each string as follows. Please exercise care when tuning, especially with larger pitch changes.

• 6th String (Low E): Tune down 1 semitone from E3 to D#3.
• 5th String (A): Tune up 1 semitone from A3 to A#3.
• 4th String (D): Tune up 1 semitone from D4 to D#4.
• 3rd String (G): Tune up 1 semitone from G4 to G#4.
• 2nd String (B): Tune down 3 semitones from B4 to G#4.
• 1st String (High e): Tune down 1 semitone from E5 to D#5.

While most string movements are relatively minor, always take care when adjusting string tension. For movements exceeding 4 semitones up or down, considering a different string gauge is generally advised, though this tuning does not have such extreme changes.

The open strings are tuned to the following notes:

6th String: D#3
5th String: A#3
4th String: D#4
3rd String: G#4
2nd String: G#4
1st String: D#5