Most guitarists who explore alternate tunings begin by tuning the guitar to a major chord. I usually ask beginning explorers to try open G (D G D G B D) first and move on to open D (D A D F# A D) or open C (C G C G C E) later in the learning process. In this lesson, we'll depart from that tack by taking a look at a minor tuning—a variant on G minor: C G D G Bb D. As you'll see, there are many advantages to minor tunings, such as cool tonal opportunities, easier fingerings, and a host of new compositional ideas. Let's examine some of the ins and outs of C G D G Bb D and then see how they work in the first couple of sections of my tune "Swept Away."

In a major tuning like open G, any major chord can be played with a straight one-finger barre, and the bass accompaniment of the tonic chord (G major) can be played with the right thumb without the need to fret any bass lines. That's cool—it makes it easy to chase melodies around with much or all of your right hand, it makes it possible to play slide, and all in all it makes beginning in a tuning like open G pretty painless. However, moving all of your chords up and down the neck with one-finger barres creates a pretty sterile musical environment, and playing minor chords up the neck in open G is no picnic. If you barre every string at the fifth fret and then try to figure out a way to lower the second-string note by one fret, you'll see what I mean. Since minor chords are a significant part of any key (the ii, iii, and vi chords of major keys are always minor), this is a real drawback to major tunings. Let's see how minor chords work in G minor.

In G minor with a C bass, any one-finger barre can create a five-note minor chord analogous to the major one-finger barre chords in open G.

But here's the kicker: it is also extremely easy to play major chords. The simplest way to do so is to raise the third of the chord by one half step, turning any minor chord into a major. In this tuning, play a one-finger barre and then reach one fret higher on the second string with your middle finger and voilà, there's the major chord!

In open G, the IV chord is C. If you want a good C bass note, it has to be played with a barre at the fifth fret. Look at the difference in C G D G Bb D, with that great low C on the sixth string. Here are two C-chord voicings that come alive in first position with a barre at the fifth fret:

You can also add the open C string to the C minor barre chord to thicken up the bass.

And here are a couple of good fingerings for the V chord (D); we now have command of the three most important chords in the key of G minor.

The chord on the left has a tasty optional D-augmented voicing.

What makes minor keys so interesting? Major keys offer one undeviating formula of seven half and whole steps, while minor keys come in three flavors: natural, harmonic, and melodic. We won't get into the details of the differences, but it's important to know that different minor scales create different chords, making minor keys an especially rich palette for tonal color and chordal exploration. Staying in one minor key doesn't confine you to seven chords but offers you peppery substitutions that are easy to find and play. The IV and V chords, for instance, can be either major or minor in character, giving you great options for substitutions in tone and coloration as you move through a piece. All told, the three minor scales offer you more than 15 different chords without leaving the root key. Let's look at some possible voicings in C G D G Bb D tuning.

The ii7 chord in most minor keys is a great-sounding Am7b5 chord, also known as A half-diminished. It turns up in measure 50 of "Swept Away," transcribed on page XX. Turnarounds, which move from ii to V in this tuning, sound mysterious and evocative. The IIImaj7 chord (which first appears in measure 1 of the piece as an Emaj9 chord) is another fat-sounding collection of intervals, and its major brother, the VI or Bb (voiced here as a Bb6), offers a great starting chord for "Swept Away" (after a short four-bar introduction), with its mellow sound slowly giving way to the more dissonant minor textures that lie ahead.

Throughout the piece, the bass notes should sustain for the full length of each bar wherever possible. In the introduction, for instance, keep your index finger on the Eb bass note throughout, and be sure that its wonderful low tone sustains and supports the arpeggiated melody. Use your pinky for the melody notes at the fifth fret of the first and second strings in bars 5, 9, 16, etc. The Cm7 chord in bar 18 doesn't use the low C on the sixth string, but instead uses the C at the fifth fret of the fifth string as its bass note. This is an artistic choice: when the low C is used later in the piece, it has a strong musical impact. It also allows a nice bass movement (in measure 73) from D to Eb to E to F# in a continuous ascending series of half steps.

The only difficult fingering in this piece occurs at bar 30. Use your index finger or thumb for the bass Eb note while using your ring and pinky fingers for the melody. If this proves to be too big a stretch, try capoing at the second fret for the entire piece as I did when I recorded it. When you reach bar 50, you'll get your first chance to hear that great ii7—V7 (Am7b5 to D7) change to which I referred earlier. Be sure to play the pull-offs in the final two bars with sufficient authority for the open strings to ring out above the sustained bass notes. Remember that this is a wistful ballad that should be played with emotion and tenderness.

[continue on to page 2 for the song transcription and audio]