“I didn’t want to copy Keith Richards or Rich Robinson from the Black Crowes. I wanted to try to find my own guitar voice”: Charlie Starr on how to make open G tuning work for you

Hello, and welcome to my new column for Guitar World! Over the course of these lessons, I will be sharing and demonstrating my approaches to rhythm playing, soloing, slide guitar, open tunings and songwriting, all of which have contributed to the music I’ve written and recorded with my band, Blackberry Smoke.

I’d like to start off with a look at open G tuning, which I used to write the Blackberry Smoke song Ain’t Much Left of Me from our 2012 album, The Whippoorwill.

When I started writing songs for the band back in 2001, the very first one I wrote was in open G tuning, a tune called Sanctified Woman. That song kicks off with a rhythm part along the lines of Figure 1.

I begin with a G5 chord fretted on the 6th, 4th and 3rd strings, wrapping my thumb around the top of the neck at the 5th fret to sound the low G. G5 switches to Gsus4 and then G, sounded with the open 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings, followed by D5 and C5 chords sounded by barring across these strings.

This proved to be a great jumping off point for the band. There were just three of us at the time – me, Brit and Richard Turner – and when I played that riff, one of them said, “Oh, I like that! What is that?”

Open G tuning is achieved by tuning your 6th, 5th and 1st strings down a whole step while leaving the 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings tuned normally, resulting in (low to high) D, G, D, G, B, D. Strumming across the open strings in this tuning yields a very full and resonant-sounding G major chord.

I discovered open G tuning when I was about 12 years old, while checking out a transcription of the Rolling Stones song Honky Tonk Women. Keith Richards, as most of you know, has written many classic songs in this tuning.

Open G tuning is also great for slide guitar, as demonstrated in Figure 2. I begin by sliding into a D chord, and then drop down to C, Bb, A and G, followed by a stock G5 voicing played on the top four strings. The Figure continues with more open G-type licks played with the slide.

I became fascinated with the alternate chord forms that the tuning could facilitate. Figure 3 is a great example: fretting the 4th, 3rd and 2nd strings at the 2nd, 3rd and 1st frets, respectively, combined with the open 5th and 1st strings, yields a great-sounding C9/G voicing that’s not possible in standard tuning.

As demonstrated in Figure 4, one can also find unique “grips” for dominant 7th chords like D7, C7, F7 and G7.

As I mentioned earlier, Ain’t Much Left of Me is played in open G tuning. I didn’t want to copy Keith Richards or Rich Robinson from the Black Crowes. I wanted to try to find my own guitar voice, which I’m sure was true for the Delta blues masters like Son House and Charlie Patton.

Figure 5 illustrates the tune’s main riff. Bar 1 is based on Fsus2/G to C/G to G, repeated in bar 2 and then capped off with descending slides on the 5th and 2nd strings.

Bars 1 and 2 of Figure 6 show the basic groove between G5 and F5, and the main lick is revisited in bars 3 and 4.

I’d written another part, shown in Figure 7, that’s based on arpeggiations and sliding chord forms combined with single-note riffs, which became the basis for the song’s intro.

I’ll be back next month with a breakdown of the slide solo. See you then!

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