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Q&A: How to learn a song played in open tuning?

Lesson #409 • Jan 8, 2022

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It includes all of my notes for this lesson, allowing you to follow along at your own pace. You're free to download, print, and share the PDF across your devices.

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Editor’s notes

I’d never messed with Open D tuning until this video! Patreon supporter Michael asks about learning a song that isn’t in standard tuning, and I show him how I’d go about it.

In the video I’ll reference the song Michael sent in – “Wild Child” by Ghost of Paul Revere – and give my reaction & advice in real time, as I watch the video. I show my process of figuring out which key the song is in, what chords the song uses, and then wrap my head around open D tuning, which admittedly is 100% new to me. If you want to see what it’s like for a relatively experienced guitarist (me) to figure all this out on the fly, with zigs and zags included – give this a watch!

The question that inspired this lesson

Patreon supporter Michael asked the following question:

“I am a big fan of the song Wild Child by Ghost of Paul Revere (below) and wanted to learn it but haven’t found a tab that looks accurate. Does it look like he is in different tuning to you? It does to me since he plays a lot of open in between riffs/chord changes. Don’t need a full tab or lesson (all though it would be nice lol) but if you get a chance could you take a look and see if you can tell what tuning he is in and what the chords are?”

The song that I’m referencing during the lesson

Here’s the song I’m watching during my video. It’s called “Wild Child” by Ghost of Paul Revere.

Lessons about tuning:

Lessons about the fretboard:

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