How to Use Drop D Tuning | Heavy Metal Guitar

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Must Haves for any Guitar Player:

Alright, we're talking about Drop D tuning. The first time I ever heard Drop D tuning was one of my favorite guitar players, Eddie Van Halen, on the tune Unchained. It was just one of the heaviest sounds I'd ever heard. He also had the whole guitar tuned down a half step to begin with. Since then Drop D tuning has become a standard tuning in a lot of heavy metal.

The whole idea behind it is you have your standard tuning. You take this low string, alright, that's your E string, and you just tune it down to an octave of the D string. Check it out.

Okay. Now, it's best to use a tuner and make sure you're exactly in tune. I'm going to do that right now. A little flat. Okay.

Now I have Drop D tuning. So when I play the low string, the sixth along with the fifth and fourth, I get this power chord. Right. It's a very low sounding power chord.

One of the fun things about this is I can take my index finger or my third finger and just play straight across the fret and move that chord. So it's quite simple.

You can also have a lot of fun by taking a chord and sliding it. I could slide from the third to the fifth fret, or the third to the first fret, and alternate with the low string which is not tuned to D. Okay. To demonstrate I'm going to do a little bit of all those things keeping a groove using Drop D tuning.

Alright. I added in a couple of things that I didn't speak about earlier. You can do single notes. I was doing these notes right here alternating with the low D string, and then throwing in some chords. I was also doing high power chords, the D string and the A string, fifth fret. See, that gives you the octave of the low D, and you can play around with that and alternate.

I hope you've enjoyed this lesson on Drop D tuning.

[digantahowlader]

Never thought that the guitar lesson will be given by Alex Skolnick. It was really a privilege to get a guitar lesson from one of the best guitarist in the world.

[gdlegofatxd]

Wow, he got the tuning right, unlike the drop b video

[mattnobrega]

That sounds sick!them finger chords sound heavy too. I'm that guy that would play one string power chords to sound like I know what I'm doing. 🤣

[Ken-Morten]

Man i been trying to figure out this tuning for a Long time. I should have Just checked out this video months ago. Good video. 😊

[randallbryant]

Thanks..Because I'm in Standard Tuning, But I wanna Play Heavy..So Now I gotta try D tuning for a lower tone. I knew Standard tuning wasn't enough to play Heavier. Thanks again 👍🤟.

[michaelguenther]

So EVH plays drop D on a guitar that's tuned half-step down... Damn, that man is good!

[stevenspaulding]

Thanks man 🤘🤘🤘🎸 got my fender sounding nasty bro🔥🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘

[shootamcgaven]

best tutorial to just get me to pick up a guitar and try to make noise

[bookreaderson]

Fukin so easy to understand the way he teaches it

[rjwintl]

like the resurgent German heavy metal band Running Wild !

[RailsRevolution]

What the hell's going on down in the comments? D:

[cducky]

0:40 sounds like green grass high tides

[JLxavyo]

Ima new guitar player and my question is do you need a pedal for metal.

[arnelabella]

hey i dunnu what does that mean but... i prefer playing random

[gageclark]

Also known as tool tuning I don’t even know why I’m here I’m not even a beginner

[bobbymcloughlin]

That is an Open D6sus(9) Tuning

6 String Guitar

D A D G B E (Regular)
A D A G B E (Bass + Treble)
D E A G B E (Plectrum)
D E A G B D (Slack Key)

7 String: A D A D G B E, A D E A G B E

D A E A G B E (Bass + Treble)
A D E A G B D (Slack)

8 String: D B E A D G B E, D A E A D G B E (Jazz)

D A D A D G B E (Metal)

[moistness]

There were too many pinch harmonics for me, and i love pinch harmonics. Put that into perspective

[dcmetri]

Can this be applied to any drop tuning like drop c ?

[kaspermord]

I can't even do that without totally changing the intonation and string height and whatever. Starts buzzing.

[Tomb]

Doesn't mention the pinch harmonic ;)