How long did it take you to learn DADGAD?

[BongoSTL]

From reading your post, I would think smoother direction to consider would be CAGED (or one of the other systems related to it).

Lots of bang for your buck there...

[BluesKing777]

There are probably as many approaches to learning and playing in DADGAD as there are in standard tuning. Best way to start is to...start. I play mainly in standard but started open tunings in general many years back with Open G and D for bottleneck. The challenge with those is to ‘convert’ tunes you know to that tuning as you get better and by then, a little bored with the Open tuning limitations. For example, a slide tune in G followed by a slide tune in G....hmmm, after a while you think: ‘Capo!’. Capo out of that G! Please! But the strings are lower with a capo so the slide is not as good..... next you want to play with (left) fingers as well as slide....all to get some variety.

Then on to DADGAD to play a drone instrumental style ala a lot of Jimmy Page and that acoustic field he tapped into. As many people tell me, I can drone on for hours and ha! Same in DADGAD! A lot of the instrumentals are dreamy things usually called something to do with a journey on a boat with The Celts. And while superb fun to begin with, the whole thing can get a bit ‘samey’.

So to dig deeper in DADGAD, first is to get some learning materials like Doug Young’s ‘Understanding DADGAD” which is what it says. Get a handle on how the thing relates to standard tuning and vice versa. (chances of playing a cowboy chord type song in simple chords in DADGAD is still pretty weird. For the devoted masochistic DADGAD lover, next could be his Fiddle Tunes in DADGAD. And the full sadist trial - learn some Pierre Bensusan.

How long? You ask? All up, say 35 full lifetimes may do it. But like everything in this world, some seem to be be born already knowing how to do it...

BluesKing777.

[joeld]

Haha, my music time these days starts out in EADGBE practicing moving progressions around the neck with CAGED, then to dropped-D to work on Toby Walker's D pack, then to double-dropped-D for Steve Baughman's Power of Claw DVD lesson, then DADGAD to try to learn a bit of Al Petteway's beautiful Appalachian stuff. So I'm changing one string at a time from standard to DADGAD. Then back to standard. Lots of fun!

To the OP, not that I'm any kind of authority, but it seems to me like different songs make sense in DADGAD than in standard tuning. So moving your song list to DADGAD might be a lot of work for little reward rather than learning new songs that fit in DADGAD. If you already have some chops, you'll find it is pretty easy to pick up a few alternate tuning tunes. Just a thought.

[Arthur Slowhand]

Surely if you're interested in the sort of music that DADGAD lends itself to, you'll pick it up just like you did standard tuning.

It always struck me that DADGAD resembles the voicings not only of Celtic, but Indian and north African music. Wikipetc has a better description than I could muster:

DADGAD was popularised by British folk guitarist Davey Graham. Inspired by hearing an oud player in Morocco, Graham experimented with detuning some of the guitar's strings from standard tuning... He employed the tuning to great effect in his treatments of Celtic music, but also the folk music of India and Morocco.

The result [of DADGAD tuning] is an open D suspended fourth chord. Being suspended, the open tuning is neither intrinsically major nor minor.

The suitability of DADGAD to Celtic music stems from the fact that it facilitates the use of a number of moveable chords which retain open strings. These act as a drone on either the bass or treble strings, approximating the voicings used in traditional Scottish and Irish pipe music.

Hope I'm not teaching anyone to suck eggs - just thought it interesting.

[JonPR]

I play a few tunes in DADGAD, but I've never "learned" it in the way I learned the fretboard in EADGBE. I just learn the tunes. Of course, I know what the notes are - transposing from their known positions in EADGBE - and on the rare occasions when I actually try making my own tunes in DADGAD I will be thinking of the notes and what chords they produce. It takes me a little longer in DADGAD, in the same way that reading bass clef takes a second or two longer than reading treble clef, even though I've played bass as well as guitar for over 50 years.
I haven't known DADGAD for that long, mind. First time I used it was maybe 20 years ago.
If I was using it in preference to EADGBE, then I might spend longer getting familiar with its chord shapes - but of course the longer I spent playing in that tuning the more familiar I'd get anyway.

In short - the fact it takes a few seconds longer to identify a chord in DADGAD than in EADGBE (at least if some way up the neck) is not an issue for me.