Ostrich Tuning on 6-String Guitar: Notes, Chords and How to Use It
Ostrich tuning is one of the strangest and most liberating tunings you can put on a guitar: every string is tuned to the same note, D. No chord shapes to memorise, no tricky string relationships, just one note ringing out across the whole neck. It sounds odd on paper, but it produces a huge, droning, hypnotic wall of sound. It's also a brilliant way to hear the fretboard with fresh ears. The name comes from "The Ostrich", a song Lou Reed recorded before The Velvet Underground, and he used the tuning on some of that band's early, droning recordings.
What Changes From Standard Tuning
In standard tuning your open strings, from the thickest (string 6, nearest your chin) to the thinnest (string 1), are E, A, D, G, B, E. In Ostrich tuning they become:
- String 6: D
- String 5: D
- String 4: D
- String 3: D
- String 2: D
- String 1: D
Every pair of neighbouring strings is a unison, meaning they share the same note name. Because the strings are different thicknesses, they don't all sit at the same pitch. String 6 gives you a deep D, and strings 2 and 1 give you a bright, high D. Think of a choir all singing the same note, with basses, tenors and sopranos each in their own range. That stacking of the same note at different heights is what gives Ostrich tuning its thick, shimmering sound.
How to Tune Into It, Step by Step
A quick term first. A half step is the distance of one fret, and a whole step is two frets. Take your time, turn the pegs slowly, and use a tuner if you have one.
- Leave string 4 alone. It's already D, so it's your reference note for everything else.
- String 6: down a whole step, from E to D. Loosen it until it matches the D of string 4, just lower and deeper.
- String 1: down a whole step, from E to D. Loosen it until it matches the D note, high and bright.
- String 2: up three half steps, from B to D. This one gets tighter, so go gently. Tune it until it matches string 1 exactly.
- String 3: retune from G to D. Bring it down until it matches the D of string 4.
- String 5: retune from A to D. You can match it to either the low D of string 6 or the D of string 4. Tuning up adds tension. If the string feels very tight or you're nervous about it, tune down to the lower D instead.
When you're done, strum all six open strings. You should hear one note, D, ringing in different octaves with no clashing or wobbling. If you hear a slow "wah-wah" beating sound, one string is slightly off. Pluck the strings in pairs to find the culprit.
Why Players Use It
The drone. A drone is a note that keeps sounding underneath everything else, like the hum of bagpipes. In Ostrich tuning every open string is a drone, so whatever you play on one string, the others can ring D around it.
Effortless chord shapes. Since every string is tuned the same, a shape doesn't change when you move it to another string. Lay one finger flat across any fret (a barre) and you get one note stacked through the octaves. Slide that barre up and down the neck and you have a whole song's worth of massive, unified sounds with a single finger.
Heavy, hypnotic riffs. Strumming hard on all six strings at once gives a dense, roaring tone that suits repetitive, trance-like rock and noisy, experimental playing. Think of it less as playing chords and more as playing texture.
Strumming the Open Strings
Strum all six open strings and you get D, and only D. There's no major or minor flavour, because there's only one note. That neutrality is the point. It's a blank canvas, and you choose the mood by what you add on top.
Listen closely as the strum fades. You'll notice the strings feeding off each other, a kind of ringing halo above the note. Strum softly, then hard, and hear how much the character changes with your attack alone.
How Scale and Chord Shapes Shift
Forget your usual box patterns. In standard tuning a scale shape zig-zags across strings because each string is tuned to a different note. In Ostrich tuning every string is identical, so the fret pattern for a scale is the same on every string. Learn a melody on one string and you already know it on all six.
Here's what that means in practice:
- Melodies run along the neck, not across it. You'll mostly play up and down a single string, letting the others drone.
- Fret 12 gives you D again, an octave higher, just as the 12th fret always repeats the open string. That's your landmark.
- Chords come from mixing frets. Fret one string at one fret and another string at a different fret while the rest ring open. Each fretted note sounds against the D drone, so listen for which combinations feel sweet, tense or dark.
Be ready to use your ears more than your eyes. Your familiar shapes won't sound like themselves here, and that's half the fun.
A First Thing to Try
Strum all six open strings in a steady, even rhythm, down-strokes only, like a train chugging. Keep it going for a full minute until it feels hypnotic. Then, without stopping, lay one finger across all the strings at a low fret for a few strums and come back to open. Try a few different frets and notice which ones feel like tension and which feel like they want to return home to D.
Next, keep strumming the open strings with your picking hand while you slide one finger up and down string 1 to find a simple melody over the drone. Don't worry about theory. Just follow your ears. Ten minutes of this and you'll understand exactly why players fell in love with this odd little tuning.
More on the instrument itself: the 6-String Guitar guide.