Drop D tuning

D2 · A2 · D3 · G3 · B3 · E4

Drop D changes exactly one string — the low E goes down a whole tone to D — which makes it the least disruptive alternate tuning there is and the usual first one anybody learns. It is standard equipment across rock, metal and a great deal of fingerstyle, and because the other five strings do not move you can switch to it mid-set in about five seconds.

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Strings

1 string moves from standard

  • 6D2▼2
  • 5A2
  • 4D3
  • 3G3
  • 2B3
  • 1E4

Last few seconds

Harmonics

How far each overtone sits above its ideal position. A stiff, wound string rises to the right.

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What to aim at

Matches what it hears to the nearest string of the tuning.

Getting there from standard

One string moves. Everything else stays where it is.

  • String 6 E2 → D2 a whole tone down

Songs in Drop D tuning

  • Everlong Foo Fighters
  • Dear Prudence The Beatles
  • Harvest Moon Neil Young

What it does to your playing

The payoff is the bottom three strings, which now sit a fifth and an octave apart: a power chord becomes one finger laid flat across them, and it slides anywhere on the neck. It also hands you a low D, a full tone below where the guitar normally stops, which is why so much drop-tuned riffing sounds heavier without being any faster. Everything above the sixth string keeps its usual shapes, so your chord vocabulary survives intact — the only casualty is the open E-shape barre chord, whose root note has moved.

Strings and setup

No gauge change needed. The sixth string loses roughly 11% of its tension, so if it buzzes against the lower frets a slightly heavier low string (a .054 in place of a .046, say) firms it back up. Going down a tone and back repeatedly is the fastest way to stretch a new string in, so expect to re-check it a few times before it settles.

Other tunings

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