Lesson 123: Zen Guitar

What is Zen Guitar?

Zen Guitar is a concept invented by Philip Toshio Sudo. Philip Toshio Sudo was a Japanese/ American who has performed a lot as a street musician in New York. You may want to check out:

• the official Zen Guitar website
• the book Zen Guitar by Philip Toshio Sudo
• the book The Book of Six Strings: The Six-Fold Path of Zen Guitar by Philip Toshio Sudo & Tobias Hurwitz

The Zen Guitar Tuning

The idea is to use an alternative tuning. The Zen Guitar tuning is DADAAD, low to high. This is a D power chord, which is neither major nor minor.

The nice thing about using a new tuning is that you have to start all over, from the beginning. You can't rely on standard chord or scale fingerings, but you have to find out new ways to play in this tuning.

Some Chord Fingerings in the Zen Guitar Tuning

Let's take a look at a couple of particularly nice chord forms. In the Zen Guitar tuning, the first one below is a Dadd9 chord ( DDAEAD, low to high) and the second one is a Gadd9 chord ( GDGAAD, low to high).

By moving these fingerings up and down the neck, you will get a lot of interesting chords/ sounds. Just experiment, play around and when you find something nice, you can figure out what it is.

A personal favorite of mine is the third one above, which turns out to be a Bbmaj9 chord ( BbFCAD, low to high). It sounds very nice when arpeggiated. I use this chord in my song Sensei & Unsui:

Let's look at some more chord forms. In the Zen Guitar tuning, the first one below is a Bb major chord ( BbFD, low to high) and the second one is a D minor chord ( DAF, low to high). The third one is an F power chord ( FCF, low to high) and the fourth one is a D power chord ( DAD, low to high)

Some Scale Fingerings in the Zen Guitar Tuning

Playing scales can be a bit tricky in the Zen Guitar tuning. The first fingering below is a D major scale, the second one is a D Dorian minor scale and the third one is a D minor pentatonic scale.

In the Zen Guitar tuning, the scale below is a D Major scale. The tones on the 2nd/ A string are a b c# d e f# g a and the tones on the 1st/ D string are d e f# g a b c# d.

Playing in the Zen Guitar Tuning

The Zen Guitar tuning makes it easy to:

• play more up and down the neck than in position
• use a drone - either a low D or include the high open strings in every chord
• play music that is heavily based on a key center
• improvise, to just play around in D, without having to know a lot of chord or scale fingerings

• playing simple major and minor triadic chords
• playing scales in more than one octave

• both arpeggiating and strumming the chords - you will get interesting results
• using a capo, which enables you to play in other keys than D
• playing Indian raga and/ or African folk music, which are often based on a drone or a key center
• the Zen Guitar tuning on both acoustic and electric guitar - I personally think that it sounds best on acoustic steel-string, but that's a matter of taste
• playing in other keys than D - try for example Bb or B, when the high open strings D and A work as the third and the seventh
• playing melodies in unison on the 2nd and 3rd string for a nice live slightly out of tune "chorus" effect
• some tunes - try for example Beatrice by Sam Rivers, Bemsha Swing by Thelonious Monk, Hey Joe by Billy Roberts, One Note Samba by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, Re: Person I Knew by Bill Evans, So What by Miles Davis or Take Five by Paul Desmond

Drones in the Zen Guitar Tuning

A drone can be:

• a bass tone
• a pedal tone
• a repeated pattern

A Nice Little Melody

The melody below is writtten by Philip Toshio Sudo. You can hear him playing it at the end of his song Raise the Spirit, which can be found here.

Some Sound Files:

• the Zen Guitar group at SoundCloud
• Tobias Hurwitz playing One Sound One Song by Philip Toshio Sudo
• the Zen Guitar Voices Vision video series on YouTube
• My ReverbNation page or my SoundCloud page, where you can listen to my songs One Man One Song and Zen Guitar Jam ( co-written with Janne Hyöty)

Some Sheet Music:

• One Man One Song, One Man One Song, page 2 by Tomas Karlsson
• Sensei & Unsui by Tomas Karlsson

© 2011 Tomas Karlsson. All rights reserved.