Songs in Open D Tuning (DADF#AD): Bon Iver, Delta Blues, and One Nick Drake Song
Strum an open guitar in standard tuning and you get a muddy Em11 that nobody asked for. Strum one in Open D and you get a full D major chord, ringing, with three D's stacked across the neck.
That is the whole appeal. The guitar stops being a grid you have to solve and starts being an instrument that sounds good before you have done anything to it. This is the first in a series on alternate tunings and the songs that live in them, and we are starting here because Open D is the one people fall hardest for.
What Open D is
D A D F# A D, low to high. Here is what the tuner is listening for:
| String | Standard | Open D | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6th (low) | E2 | D2 — 73.42 Hz | Down a whole step |
| 5th | A2 | A2 — 110.00 Hz | Unchanged |
| 4th | D3 | D3 — 146.83 Hz | Unchanged |
| 3rd | G3 | F#3 — 185.00 Hz | Down a half step |
| 2nd | B3 | A3 — 220.00 Hz | Down a whole step |
| 1st (high) | E4 | D4 — 293.66 Hz | Down a whole step |
Four strings move, two stay put, and everything moves down — which means less tension on the neck and a slightly slacker feel under the fingers. Nothing goes up, so there is no risk of snapping a string on the way in.
Barre straight across any fret and you get that fret's major chord. The 5th fret is G, the 7th is A, the 12th is D an octave up. That is the trick the blues players built a century of slide guitar on.
Tap the badge to open the tuner already set up: 
— retune before you read on, the rest of this makes more sense with the guitar in your hands.
The songs that sent everyone here
Bon Iver — re: Stacks
The closing track of For Emma, Forever Ago is the song that sent a generation of guitarists looking up alternate tunings. Justin Vernon plays it in Open D, and in live performances he sits a capo at the 6th fret, which puts the whole thing up in Ab.
One honest caveat: Vernon is famously loose about pitch on that record. Listen closely and the guitar sits somewhere between Eb and D, which is part of why the album sounds the way it does and part of why tabs for it disagree with each other. Tune to concert-pitch Open D, then move the capo until it sits where your voice wants it.
The Tallest Man on Earth — The Gardener
Kristian Matsson built most of Shallow Grave out of open tunings and a capo jammed high up the neck, and "The Gardener" is the clearest example — Open D, commonly played with a capo at the 6th fret as well.
That high capo is not an accident. Open D down at the nut is dark and wide; clamp it at the 6th and the whole instrument tightens up into something bright and nervous that suits a voice pushing at the top of its range. If a song in this tuning sounds too gloomy, the capo is usually the answer.
The Nick Drake problem
Here is where most tuning listicles quietly cheat.
Nick Drake is the patron saint of alternate tunings — he used at least nine across three albums and almost never played in standard. But he was not an Open D player. Across his whole catalogue, exactly one song is in DADF#AD.
His actual signatures were elsewhere:
| Tuning | Songs | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| BEBEBE | 7 | "Northern Sky," "From the Morning," "Fly" |
| CGCFCE | 6 | "Pink Moon," both "Hazey Jane"s, "Parasite" |
| DADF#AD | 1 | "One of These Things First" |
So if you came here chasing the Pink Moon sound, Open D will not get you there, and no amount of capo will fix it — that one is CGCFCE, and it is getting its own article in this series. But the one song he did write in Open D is worth the retune on its own.
Nick Drake — One of These Things First
From Bryter Layter, and the outlier in his catalogue. The piano carries most of it, which is exactly why the guitar part is so playable — it is holding down a shape and letting the open strings do the work.
Where the tuning actually comes from
Long before the indie folk revival, Open D and its cousin Open E were the working tunings of the Delta. A tuning that gives you a major chord with a straight barre is a tuning built for a slide.
Son House — Death Letter
The template. Slide, open tuning, and a rhythm hammered out on the low strings while the melody happens above it — most of what came later is a variation on this.
Robert Johnson — Love in Vain
Muddy Waters — Rollin' and Tumblin'
Bob Dylan recorded the original New York sessions for Blood on the Tracks in Open D, which is why those takes sound so different from the Minneapolis re-records that made the final album.
More worth learning
Elliott Smith — Pretty Mary K
Mumford & Sons — The Cave
Andy McKee — Drifting
The percussive fingerstyle piece that made McKee a household name among guitarists. Worth watching before you attempt it.
Arrangements vary, and capo positions vary more. Where a song has several accepted versions, the ones listed here are the most commonly taught — treat them as a starting point rather than gospel.
A note on capos in this tuning
Open D players use capos harder than almost anyone, because the tuning has a fixed character that a capo lets you move around. Two of the three songs at the top of this article live at the 6th fret.
Guithub tracks the capo as part of the tuning, so a link carries the fret with it:
— effectively Open E, with none of the string tension
— Open F#- — Open Ab, the Bon Iver / Tallest Man register
Capo 2 deserves a special mention. Open E is the same shape a whole step up, and plenty of blues records are in it — but tuning up to E puts real strain on a guitar built for standard. Open D plus a capo gets you the same pitches without asking anything of the neck.
Don't see your bass tuning?
Guithub supports 4-, 5-, and 6-string basses with the most common tunings. If yours is missing, tell me and I'll add it.
Request a bass tuningTune up and go
Open D is the rare tuning that rewards you immediately. You do not need new chord shapes to make it sound good — one barred finger and an open strum will do.
Open the tuner — — get the four strings that move down where they belong, and play something.
Running a tab site or a setlist? Every tuning here has a shareable badge you can drop into a page, capo included — hit the badge under the tuner to copy one. And if Guithub earns a spot in your practice routine, consider leaving a tip or reading the story behind it.