Open G

Open G retunes three strings — 6th, 5th, and 1st, each down a whole step — so that the open guitar simply IS a G major chord. Where DADGAD suspends, open G resolves: strum nothing-fretted and you get music. Every 12-bar in G, every slide lick, every five-string-banjo borrowing on guitar starts from this fact.

The retune, string by string

Derived from pitch math against standard EADGBE (deltas in semitones):

The open strings spell no single chord — drop D keeps standard tuning's mixed open-string set, which is exactly why nearly everything you know still works.

Chords in this tuning

The shared Open G chord library ships 1080 curated voicings across all twelve roots — browse the full per-chord diagrams in the Open G chord library on String Warrior, our comparative sister site (same underlying data, page for page).

Using it

The tuning's grammar is the straight barre: one finger across all six strings at fret 5 is C major, at fret 7 is D major — the I–IV–V of G with a single moving finger, which is why the tuning powers so much rhythm guitar (and why removing the 6th string entirely, Keith Richards style, is a legitimate option: the 5th-string G becomes the true bass root).

Slide players live here because a straight bar IS a chord: the glass never has to angle. If the sound hooks you, the resonator — an instrument that lives permanently in open G (GBDGBD, the same pitch-class recipe anchored differently) — has a full reference on this site. For grounding, compare G major in standard tuning, then retune accurately and play the open strings: the chord is already there.