Mastering Open D Tuning
THE DEFINITIVE OPEN D MASTERCLASS
What's Inside the Masterclass
Fretboard
Freedom
Gain total command over the neck with the most complete guitar course designed for Open D. Learn to harmonize scales and discover beautiful chord voicings that unlock your full creative potential and give you the confidence to play songs in any key.
Comprehensive Materials
Master each concept with 3+ hours of professional video and a massive 80-page eBook. Featuring 125 detailed diagrams, you’ll have a complete visual roadmap to every triad, scale, and chord extension in the curriculum.
Musical
Fluency
Move beyond memorized patterns and bridge the gap between theory and expression. Develop the internal map needed to navigate the neck with total clarity, allowing you to improvise with intent and turn Open D into your natural musical language. Includes lifetime access to all lessons and future updates.
What Students Are Saying
Beyond the "Drone"
Open D is more than just a single chord. It is a complete musical language.
The Open String Plateau
The Fretboard Unlocked
Guitarists who discover Open D are instantly captivated by its lush, orchestral resonance. But once the initial magic fades, you find yourself trapped in repetitive patterns and relying on the 5th and 7th fret ‘anchors’—unable to take full advantage of this wonderful tuning. This is the plateau of accidental discovery, where the music feels like a lucky guess rather than a conscious choice.
In this masterclass we embrace this tuning’s natural harmonics and also move beyond the ‘drone’ to unlock a complete musical language. Instead of constantly repeating the same few shapes, you will learn to navigate Open D with total command. This shift to intentional mastery gives you the tools to arrange, improvise, and express yourself in any key with absolute confidence.
The Journey: Mastering the Open D Fretboard
01
The Foundation & The Logic
Open D offers a massive, piano-like depth that standard tuning simply cannot match. We begin by unlocking the internal logic of this tuning. You will learn to navigate the fretboard horizontally, turning the neck into a clear, predictable map. No more guessing—just a solid understanding of how the major scale unfolds across the strings.
02
The Architecture of the Chord
This is where we move beyond the simple barre chord. We dive into the rich, sophisticated shapes that give Open D its versatile character. By mastering triads and inversions, you’ll find those lush, professional voicings that bring a songwriter’s touch to your playing, allowing you to move fluidly between positions with total confidence.
03
The Blues & Dominant Harmony
The Blues has a long, storied relationship with Open D, and for good reason. In this module, we explore dominant harmony and shell voicings. You’ll learn how to create that classic tension and release, giving you the tools to play a blues progression that sounds authentic, intentional, and harmonically rich.
04
Scales, Soloing, & Melodic Freedom
The biggest myth about open tunings is that you are stuck in one key. We’re going to shatter that. By integrating the Major, Pentatonic, and Blues scales with the unique geometry of Open D, you’ll unlock the ability to solo with authority. You’ll gain the freedom to play in all 12 keys, making this tuning a powerful tool for both lead playing and rhythm composition.
Full Curriculum: 42 Step-by-Step Videos
Introduction
Lesson 1: The Tuning
Lesson 2: The Major Scale & Its Intervals
Lesson 3: Major Scale Horizontal Positions
Lesson 4: Major Scale Triads
Lesson 5: Harmonizing The Major Scale
Lesson 6: Major Triad Inversions
Lesson 7: Exercise With I-IV-V
Lesson 8: Minor Triad Inversions
Lesson 9: Diminished Triads
Lesson 10: Harmonizing The Major Scale Triadically
Lesson 11: Triad Exercise Changing One Note At A Time
Lesson 12: Learning By Improvisation
Lesson 13: Triad Voicings
Lesson 14: Triad Exercise On 6-3-2 String Set
Lesson 15: Triad Exercises Continued
Lesson 16: Favored Triad Shapes
Lesson 17: Arpeggios
Lesson 18: Chord Extensions
Lesson 19: Seventh Chords
Lesson 20: Harmonizing The Major Scale With Seventh Chord
Lesson 21: Favored Seventh Chord Shapes
Lesson 22: Thinking Triadically When Soloing
Lesson 23: How To Apply Triad Soloing
Lesson 24: The Fretboard
Lesson 25: Favored Dominant Seventh Shapes
Lesson 26: The Role Of Dominant Chords
Lesson 27: Digging Into Dominant Sevenths
Lesson 28: Guide Tones
Lesson 29: Shell Voicings
Lesson 30: Blues Exercise With Dominant Seventh Chords
Lesson 31: Music Theory In The Blues
Lesson 32: The Minor Pentatonic Scale
Lesson 33: The Minor Pentatonic Scale – Horizontally
Lesson 34: Minor Pentatonic Positions
Lesson 35: Personal Approach To The Pentatonic Scale
Lesson 36: The Minor Blues Scale
Lesson 37: Introduction To Chromaticism
Lesson 38: Chromaticism In Use
Lesson 39: Minor Keys
Lesson 40: How To Play In Any Key
Conclusion
The Open D Definitive Reference: Your 80-Page Companion Guide
Included Free with the Masterclass
The Open D Definitive Reference Guide is an 80-page companion guide designed to live on your music stand. It includes 125+ detailed diagrams of chords, scales, and exercises. It provides high-resolution, print-ready detail for your practice.
The clear, in-depth explanations of triads and inversions has saved me a ton of time and really opened up my playing. Even though I’ve only been doing the course for the past two weeks my playing is definitely more musical.
I’m really grateful for this course, it’s something I’d been looking for for a long time. I work as a nurse and have kids, etc., so my time is limited in terms of playing guitar. This course has put everything needed in one place with a format that’s easy to understand and follow. Incredible value considering the time that must've been spent developing the course. Anyway it’s much appreciated. Thanks.
Pete
Open D Student | UK
BEYOND THE SHAPES
Why This Masterclass?
The bridge between technical skill and creative intent.
Most open-tuning tutorials teach you a few tricks or a single song. This is the first course of its kind to teach music theory from the ground up specifically for Open D.
You won’t just memorize shapes; you’ll learn to build beautiful, resonant chords and navigate the fretboard with a level of clarity that often feels out of reach in standard tuning. Whether your goal is delta blues, modern folk, or atmospheric fingerstyle, this system gives you the tools to express yourself with genuine musicality in any genre.
By the end of this masterclass, you will be able to improvise across the neck, play sophisticated scales and chords in all twelve keys, and master a system that applies instantly to Open E and Open C tunings too. This isn’t just a secondary tuning—it is a versatile, full-fledged landscape that can easily become your primary voice on the guitar.
THE MASTERCLASS BUNDLE
Everything You Need to Master the Open D Landscape
- The Core Curriculum: 42 videos covering every corner of the Open D landscape.
- The Full Reference Book: 80 pages of meticulously designed PDF tabs, charts, and theory breakdowns.
- Zero-Friction Learning: Instant lifetime access. No subscriptions. No expiring content.
- The Complete System: From first principles to professional-level soloing and chord architecture.
$250 $149 40% OFF
One-time payment. Secure checkout. 14-day money-back guarantee. Instant lifetime access.
Meet Your Instructor
Hi, I’m Jake Shane.
I’ve spent my career as a guitarist and singer-songwriter, releasing eight albums and performing in a dozen countries. Along the way, Open D became the cornerstone of my music—but I found that resources for the tuning were either incomplete or lacked a clear, musical logic.
I created this Masterclass to be the definitive guide I wished had existed. It is a system built from years of recording, performing, and mentoring students across the globe, designed to take you from guesswork to total fluency on the fretboard.
Let’s get started.
Frequently Asked Questions
That can actually be an advantage in some cases. Many students find that “unlearning” standard tuning habits is easier when they treat Open D as its own logical system. Phase 01 is dedicated entirely to the logic of the tuning to ensure you never feel lost.
If you can play a few songs in any tuning, you are perfectly positioned to start this journey. We treat Open D as a “New Map,” starting from first principles.
This Masterclass is a complete roadmap for Open D tuning, built for anyone from the curious beginner to the long-time player. We start with the simple logic of the tuning to make sure your foundation is solid, but we don’t stay at the surface level for long. The curriculum steadily expands into how to play beautiful, rich chords anywhere on the neck and how to solo confidently in this tuning—secrets of the fretboard that even experienced players often miss in open tunings. If you feel like you’ve been playing the same things for years in standard tuning, this ‘New Map’ approach is designed to give you a fresh start and a clear path forward.
However, this course might not be for you if: You already feel completely at home in Open D, can find your way around any scale or chord shape across the entire neck without thinking, and have already unlocked your own unique ‘voice’ in this tuning. If you are already playing with total freedom in Open D, you likely won’t need the step-by-step breakthroughs this course provides.
Immediately upon enrollment, you will gain access to a high-resolution PDF download. It is meticulously formatted for both digital use (tablets/laptops) and physical printing. It is the perfect companion book to this video course.
You have Lifetime Access. This is not a subscription. Once you enroll, the 42-video archive and the eBook are yours forever. You can stream the content on any device, at your own pace, as many times as you need.
Yes. I stand behind the depth of this curriculum. If you feel the course isn’t the right fit for your playing style, simply reach out within 14 days of purchase for a full refund. Also feel free to get in touch if you have an additional question about the course.
Yes. Any tuning that uses the intervals 1-5-1-3-5-1 has the same fretboard layout as Open D tuning. The only thing that changes is the names of the chords, not the chord shapes or fretboard logic. If you have more questions about this, feel free to send me an email.
Of course! Feel free to get in touch with any questions you have by emailing me at jake@opendtuning.org.