: Slide guitar tuning What open tuning for slide guitar would cause the least tension on my old guitar? I got a really cool parlour guitar from the 1930's. I realize it is old and bridge is fragile. I am reinforcing some

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There is no "least" tension that you could point to. As Matthew pointed out, you could just keep lowering the tension until the strings actually rest on the neck, so what you need to do is look at what will be practical.

In reality, dropping a whole tone dramatically reduces the tension - I did a quick calculation using stringtensionpro.com's tension calculator, and reducing an Open E major tuning to an open D major reduces the force on the bridge by about 20%. Dropping to open C major reduces tension by 60%.

Of course, you'll need to decide how you want to transpose melodies and chords, but that is relatively straightforward for slide guitar.