Open Strings - Your New Best Friend
- The American Guitar Academy
- 23 hours ago
- 5 min read
You may have read that title and thought “Duh! I l know about the open strings. It was lesson one!” - you would be correct. However, something that almost every guitar player does when they move on from open chord shapes is neglect the open strings; the six notes at your disposal are just as useful and valid as the rest of the notes on your guitar. In this blog post, we are going to discuss a couple of ways we can use them to provide interest to our playing.
Getting Started
If you do not definitely know the names of all six strings tuned in standard tuning, then you will at least have a good idea of what most of them are. Perhaps not in the right order, but there should be some knowledge. It is one of the first things I teach to brand new students!
The main thing we will explore today will be combining open strings with fretted notes and chord shapes, beyond that of the common open position chords we started off learning. I could go into the theory of what strings work with what chords, but I will make it clear that you should base this whole concept on what you think sounds good, or what might work for whatever project you are undertaking. Although opinions are entirely subjective whenever music is concerned, you can conjure up some terrible sounds. Let us quickly have a look at what should not happen and why something might not work.
Have a look at the G chord box to the left. You may know a slightly different voicing where the B string is played open, but the overall chord remains the same.
Across all of the strings, we play the following notes in this shape:
G B D G D G
If you take this shape up one fret, you will have these notes instead (these are not shown on the chord box):
G# C D G D# G#
Whilst I am sure there is an evil genius out there somewhere that can make this sound good, I definitely can’t! The G and G# as well as D and D# clash to violent for most tastes, including my own. If you move the shape up and try it on a different fret, you might have better results - this is all down to the relationship those open D and G strings have with whatever the fretted notes happen to be. On the other hand, moving the E chord shape up one fret creates a very mysterious, Spanish sounding chord. What it all boils down to is trial and error.
You should also consider the feelings of others when you do this. Even though you might relish the dissonance, others may not and they would immediately lose interest in your music.
What really works nicely is barre chords - oh the humanity! However, because barre chords do not usually have any open strings, we need to force them in there. One extremely common thing to do is play any major barre chord from the E string, but leave the B and E strings open (you do not have to ‘barre’ with your pointing finger). See below for an example:
This Badd11 chord is created because the rest of the notes are from B Major, but the open E creates a nice texture. I find that you can move this shape around with a better chance of coming across something that sounds pleasing to the ear.
Note: Just because this shape from the seventh fret of E (B) makes Badd11, it does not mean the same thing from the fifth fret makes Aadd11.
Some Examples
Here we will look at two examples that use this kind of idea. They are both a little different, but the principal is the same. The chord progression is simple, but interest is added thanks to these open strings.
Big White Room - Jessie J
This is a simple song that has a simple harmony throughout, in that it does not change throughout the song. Instead, the differences between the sections are based on the dynamic levels on both the guitar and vocals, lyrical content and how intense she sings.
Have a look at the tabs above, hopefully you will see some movement between the eighth and ninth frets on the G string, but aside from that the chord is basically E (A string major shape from the seventh fret) but with both E strings and the B string played open. The rest of the song continues in a similar way - I would recommend you check out my YouTube short video on the link below - those E and B strings are ringing out in every chord.
Best Of You - Foo Fighters
This is another song that uses the B and E strings as a constant sound throughout the whole progression. One thing to keep in mind here is that the Foo Fighters have three guitar players, so there is lots of interplay between all the different parts.
For the excerpt above, make sure you accent the chord on beat 1, the ‘and’ of 2 as well as beat 4. If you use your index finger on the second fret of the D string, pinky on the fourth fret of the G string and ring finger on the fourth fret of the A, you simply have to remove the latter to change between the two chords.
The next excerpt is an arpeggiated section, and is extremely similar to the part above. Notice how the open strings are still ringing out - it ties the whole thing together.
I have recorded another YouTube short demonstrating this song. Check it out below!
Other Uses
One other way I like to use open strings is to create a drone in a higher register and then play a scale underneath. It has a cool effect that you might want to employ as part of a song, or during a solo.
Have a look at the example below where I play the E Major scale on the B string, starting at the lowest note I can - which in this case is simply open B. However, as I travel horizontally up the neck, I am playing the open E string each time - give it a try!
Final Thoughts
Hopefully you can now start to create something using extra open strings, and produce some interesting sounds that you otherwise would not come across when playing the guitar. As we know, the guitar is limited to only playing six notes at any given time, unlike the piano that can play up to 10 - remember that the guitar is limited because it has six strings, but you have 10 digits on your hands with which to play the piano.
As I mentioned earlier, this whole concept can help tie things together, but this can be expanded further. Connecting notes, or shared voices (whatever you want to call it!) can be found in lots of songs. For example, check out this great tune by The Aristocrats - can you tell where the section using common tones is?
Bad Asteroid - The Aristocrats
If you need assistance with approaching your chord progressions from a different angle, either using what we have discussed today or with a different method, then speak to your teacher or someone at the American Guitar Academy.
