Open Tunings for Key of Bm

by Bo Morris
(Atlanta, Ga, USA)

I am a singer/songwriter and I have a song in the key of Bm. The chord progression for the song is as follows: vs Bm A G F#
Bm A G F#
ch G A Bm A G A

bdg D A G F#

I curently play the song in standard tuning, but I find the strum and pick patterns to be typical and boring and just not what I feel. I am looking for an open tuning that will allow a more melodical aproach, however the Bm is throwing me off. I have tried open Bm, G, D, and C, but nothing seems to work. Any Ideas?

ANSWER

Hi, Bo--

Let's see if I can help. Open D would be the obvious choice. Have you tried using the following fingering for Bm? Starting with the
6th string):

O 2 0 0 2 0

If you want a stronger Bm feeling, you could leave off the 6th string. This would leave you with root, 3rd, 5th, root, 3rd.

You could also try the D modal tuning:

D A D G A D

This tuning forms a suspended 4th chord, which can yield some interesting harmonic possibilities--such as when you go from G to F#.

In general, chords from the Open D tuning
chart can be played on a guitar tuned to Modal D
whenever it's possible to play the third string down one fret.


Hope this will give you some ideas.

Lynne