In this video
This Live Stream celebrated the launch of the new Rolling Stones course, covering standard tuning, open G, and open E – sometimes multiple tunings for the same song. I walked through why I chose the songs I did and why the order matters for building that "guitar weaving" skill where you flow between rhythm and lead without being a traditional soloist.
I started with Satisfaction and the fuzz pedal setup (Danelectro Eisenhower), explaining how crucial the muting is – the first time the riff happens is different to the second time with its two short jabs. The two-fret slide technique is fundamental here, connecting to what we teach in the beginners course and appearing throughout Stones songs. Getting control over whether you hear both notes or just the slide destination is really crucial.
For The Last Time, it's the same two-fret slide concept applied differently, plus there's a solo that's basically Hey Joe meets E minor pentatonic with chords thrown in – demonstrating that CAGED system idea where an E chord can be played using a G shape higher up the neck.
Moving to open G tuning (D-G-D-G-B-D), I demoed Start Me Up, Brown Sugar, Happy (capo 4th fret), and Jumpin' Jack Flash (also capo 4). The key insight is that once you can play Brown Sugar, you can really play any of Keith's open G stuff. Everything comes together there – knowing C is at fret 5, F at fret 10, and how the weaving happens between Ronnie and Keith playing similar but not identical riffs.
I explained the big secret: most Stones solos are actually in standard tuning as the second guitar part. With open G, strings 2, 3 and 4 haven't changed, so all your lead vocabulary transfers directly. You're never starting again – the lead parts are integral with the riffs or played by the second guitarist in standard tuning.
For open E tuning (E-B-E-G#-B-E), I covered Gimme Shelter with the tremolo effect pulsing the volume, and You Can't Always Get What You Want with capo at fret 8. The trick with open E is that the Keith Richards chord shapes from open G just move up one string. I also touched on how beginners could theoretically start in open E because E, A and B chords end up where you'd expect them – just bar across.
For acoustic open G, I played Wild Horses and mentioned other songs that use open G that people might not expect: Jeff Buckley's Last Goodbye (which uses it to create the key of D), Radiohead's My Iron Lung, Stereophonics' Step On My Old Size Nines, Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits, and Led Zeppelin's Dancing Days. Don't be scared of open tunings – once you learn the Stones stuff, you can apply it anywhere.