Open G tuner.

Open G, D G D G B D, puts a G major chord on the open strings with the root on String 5. Its best-known move uses two fingers: from the open chord, add the 2nd fret on String 4 and the 1st fret on String 2, and you get a C chord over the low G. Barre the same shape higher up and it works in any key, which is the basis of many Keith Richards riffs.

Taking String 6 off makes it cleaner still. With the low D gone, G is the lowest note and every strum lands on the root. That five-string version, G D G B D, is how Richards plays it, and it leaves fewer strings to mute when you hit hard.

Old blues and parlour players called it Spanish tuning, and slide players used it long before rock and roll. Keith Richards made it the sound of the Rolling Stones from 1969 on: Brown Sugar, Can't You Hear Me Knocking, Tumbling Dice, Happy and Start Me Up are all five-string Open G. TuneLit counts that version as Open G, and the Stones have 14 of its 20 songs, from Little Red Rooster (1965) to You Got Me Rocking (1994).

Led Zeppelin used Open G for That's the Way, Dancing Days and Black Country Woman, Billy Gibbons played the slide part of ZZ Top's Tush in it, and Queens of the Stone Age's The Way You Used to Do (Villains, 2017) shows the tuning still turns up in new riffs.

Each song has its own page: the exact tuning, the pitch of the record and how to get there string by string. Tune sets the tuner to the record, cents included.

• The Way You Used to DoQueens of the Stone Age · Villains (2017)Tune
• Brown SugarThe Rolling Stones · Sticky Fingers (1971) · −11 ¢Tune
• TushZZ Top · Fandango! (1975)Tune
• Tumbling DiceThe Rolling Stones · Exile on Main St. (1972) · +18 ¢Tune
• Start Me UpThe Rolling Stones · Tattoo You (1981) · +7 ¢Tune

Open a band to see its songs in this tuning. Each song opens on its album page, at its own Tune button, set to the pitch of the record.

A capo keeps the open-string riffs while moving the key: Tumbling Dice and Happy have one at the 4th fret, Rip This Joint at the 2nd. If you keep all six strings on, rest your thumb on the low D or simply leave it alone.

Three strings go down a whole step and none rises, so normal strings work for rhythm. For slide, a .011 set or heavier and slightly higher action stop the slide from rattling on the frets. The records drift: Exile on Main St. runs about 18 cents sharp, while Happy sits about 16 cents flat, 34 cents below Tumbling Dice in the same tuning, so use each song's Tune button.

The tuner on this page works at any A4 from 300 to 600 Hz, and can shift the whole tuning by half steps or fine cents.

Open G goes down to D2 on String 6, 73.42 Hz. A phone mic hears D2 faintly: in our phone-mic model its fundamental arrives 6 dB quieter. Read from its overtones, D2 stayed within 1 ¢.

How the tuner listens →