“The chord shapes are a little different than normal, but therein lies the beauty of an open tuning”: Charlie Starr’s open G slide soloing masterclass

Charlie Starr of Blackberry Smoke wears shades and a brown leather jacket as he plays his TV Yellow Gibson Les Paul Junior live onstage.

In my last column, I talked about how using open G tuning (low to high: D, G, D, G, B, D) has inspired me to find my own musical and compositional voice as a guitarist and craft some cool and unique chord riffs and slide parts. To illustrate, I detailed how I play the intro and the main riff from the Blackberry Smoke song Ain’t Much Left of Me.

This time, I’d like to provide some additional examples of the benefits of playing in open G tuning, by sharing how I play other sections of the tune, including the slide guitar solo.