mr dave

so... i'm going to tear into your example and hope it addresses your actual issue a bit.

from what i'm finding quickly on google. the original 'Death Letter' is by Son House and tuned to open G - DGDGBD, the White Stripes version seems to be a half step up only whoever wrote the tab screwed up and forgot the B & E rule and put Db instead of C for the B string. so you can either try tuning to all the sharps and flats or tune it to the majors listed above and slap a capo on the 1st fret and add 1 to all the numbers in the tab.

the idea of just 'moving it up the neck' is reaction by someone half listening to what you're saying and thinking that because you're using an open tuning that it's the same as the song being in a different key and you could just 'move it up the neck' to the appropriate location with a capo. this is not the case and won't help your situation AT ALL.

and if you think that tuning is a hassle here's the one for Mind Riot by Soundgarden - EEEEee. yeah.

having said all that open tunings can be really awesome and open the instrument up to a variety of new sounds. again Soundgarden being the simplest and quickest example for me a few of their last singles (Pretty Noose / Burden in my Hand) were both written in open C7 (if i remember correctly) - CGCGBE for sure. Keith Richards was also a big fan of open tunings like open G or D. it makes it easier for the musician to play since they're now able to sound a specific chord shape by just laying one finger down across the fretboard, but that also frees up a few more fingers for accents and embellishments that would otherwise be impossible to pull off in standard tuning.

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