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  #16  
Old 11-30-2020, 07:09 AM
Lauren_WarEagle Lauren_WarEagle is offline
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I used to avoid alternate tunings altogether, but in recent years I’ve found that if I’m ever in a creative funk, I’ll put the guitar in DADGAD or open D and just start making up random, interesting-sounding chords/progressions that might otherwise be more difficult in standard tuning.

I remember thinking, why on earth did I wait so long to play in DADGAD!?
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  #17  
Old 11-30-2020, 08:17 AM
rmp rmp is offline
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Originally Posted by Andyrondack View Post
To answer your question on scotia's behalf, think about the process you would have to go through to convert an arrangement of a melody with harmony in dadgad to one in standard tuning without using someone elses tab.
I get what you are suggesting, however, not nearly an easy task since the tuning gives you open notes, that are part of these arrangements where standard tuning will just not have those notes available.

Which is really a part of what makes these alternate tunings work as they do.

Last edited by rmp; 11-30-2020 at 11:47 AM.
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  #18  
Old 11-30-2020, 08:52 AM
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Originally Posted by Andyrondack View Post
To answer your question on scotia's behalf, think about the process you would have to go through to convert an arrangement of a melody with harmony in dadgad to one in standard tuning without using someone elses tab.
Generally, an arrangement in DADGAD is written in that tuning to take advantage of the tuning.
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  #19  
Old 11-30-2020, 01:04 PM
ascotia ascotia is offline
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Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post
You know, one really interesting thing about DADGAD vs standard tuning is that DADGAD is basically a subset of standard. If you know the notes in standard, you can easily know (or already know!) the notes of DADGAD. Why? Because strings, 3,4,5 are the same in both tunings. In fact, those strings are ADG. The remaining strings are dups (in a different octave). Assuming you actually want to know what you're playing - not just learning geometric shapes or tab fingerings, this is a big help. Find any note on strings 4,5,6, and you can find the same note (an octave up or down) on the remaining strings. So unlike standard where there are the notes on two E strings and a B string, in DADGAD, D A and G strings are it!

You can also think of it as the same as standard, but you have to shift fingerings up by 2 frets on strings 6,2,1. Mostly this will result in impossible fingerings, but it's a way to visualize it, and then you adjust fingerings as needed.

Of course, if you're more of a "show me chord shapes" kind of player, then there are chord charts out there, and you can also just learn lots of songs, and things will sink in by osmosis, probably.

With any tuning, there are benefits - things that lay well, cool sounds you can't get in other tunings, and also downsides - things that are harder to do than in some other tuning. Really learning your way around any particular tuning takes some, and one could write a book about it... :-)
This is exactly the type of response I was hoping for! Thank you Doug and everyone else who has chimed in, it seems I sparked a bit of a conversation . Even better, I've now discovered Doug's YouTube channel for some easy listening. Beautiful playing my friend.

I'm going to bookmark this thread for future reference. I've only ever learned one DADGAD song, "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues," and that was probably over 15 years ago (not long after I began playing guitar). It would be fun to go back and ace that song now that I'm 100x better than I was back then.

While we're here, what other songs would you all recommend?
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  #20  
Old 11-30-2020, 02:15 PM
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Originally Posted by ascotia View Post
This is exactly the type of response I was hoping for! Thank you Doug and everyone else who has chimed in, it seems I sparked a bit of a conversation . Even better, I've now discovered Doug's YouTube channel for some easy listening. Beautiful playing my friend.

I'm going to bookmark this thread for future reference. I've only ever learned one DADGAD song, "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues," and that was probably over 15 years ago (not long after I began playing guitar). It would be fun to go back and ace that song now that I'm 100x better than I was back then.

While we're here, what other songs would you all recommend?
Glad it was helpful, and thanks. Not to do a sales pitch, but my Mel Bay book, Understanding DADGAD goes into this sort of thing is greater detail, and is meant to get people comfortable with the tuning.

The tab for my version of Shendandoah (there's a You Tube video, quite old now) is available free on my website. It's a fairly easy piece using DADGAD in the key of G. But there's tons of material out there, some free, some paid. Al Petteway has a lot of great, and fairly easy tunes in DADGAD. Pat Kirtley has some nice Irish DADGAD tunes. Simon Fox has a lot of nice pieces. For more advanced challenges, Laurence Juber has a lot of DADGAD arrangements and compositions. And for the ultimate challenge, Pierre Benususan is the master of DADGAD, and worth studying for anyone serious about it, even if most of the pieces are tough for mere mortals to play.
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  #21  
Old 12-01-2020, 01:03 AM
hatamoto hatamoto is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post
You know, one really interesting thing about DADGAD vs standard tuning is that DADGAD is basically a subset of standard. If you know the notes in standard, you can easily know (or already know!) the notes of DADGAD. Why? Because strings, 3,4,5 are the same in both tunings. In fact, those strings are ADG. The remaining strings are dups (in a different octave). Assuming you actually want to know what you're playing - not just learning geometric shapes or tab fingerings, this is a big help. Find any note on strings 4,5,6, and you can find the same note (an octave up or down) on the remaining strings. So unlike standard where there are the notes on two E strings and a B string, in DADGAD, D A and G strings are it!

You can also think of it as the same as standard, but you have to shift fingerings up by 2 frets on strings 6,2,1. Mostly this will result in impossible fingerings, but it's a way to visualize it, and then you adjust fingerings as needed.

Of course, if you're more of a "show me chord shapes" kind of player, then there are chord charts out there, and you can also just learn lots of songs, and things will sink in by osmosis, probably.

With any tuning, there are benefits - things that lay well, cool sounds you can't get in other tunings, and also downsides - things that are harder to do than in some other tuning. Really learning your way around any particular tuning takes some, and one could write a book about it... :-)

Thanks for the quick visualization tip! You know how they say that the guitar is heavily based on patterns and shapes.... Do you find this is the same in DADGAD? Are chords, patterns, and scales movable as well and are they repeatable if played in a different key?
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  #22  
Old 12-01-2020, 01:40 AM
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Originally Posted by hatamoto View Post
Thanks for the quick visualization tip! You know how they say that the guitar is heavily based on patterns and shapes.... Do you find this is the same in DADGAD? Are chords, patterns, and scales movable as well and are they repeatable if played in a different key?
Sure. There are always shapes in any tuning, and scale patterns you can memorize. And if they're barre chords, they're moveable. Of course, as Rick mentioned, part of the appeal of alternate tunings is to get open strings, so barre chords are generally (but not always) less common.

So, for example, you can play a D (no 3rd) like:

000200

Barre, and move that shape up two frets:

222422, and that's an E (no 3rd) and so on.

I definitely think in terms of shapes a lot of the time, but as a fingerstyle player, I'm rarely fingering big full 6-string chords. I'm thinking voices - melody, bass, some inner chord tones. So I'm more selecting notes from within a general shape that I'm visualizing. But I'd do the same in standard tuning as well.
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  #23  
Old 12-01-2020, 02:03 AM
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Actually, I should have said, instead of needing to barre, that shapes are moveable as long as they're not using open strings. Example, in DADGAD:

5x345x is a G7. Move it up two frets:

7x567x is an A7, and so on
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  #24  
Old 12-01-2020, 10:08 PM
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We've got 2 DADGAD threads going on and I think I posted to the wrong one...

If there's interest in an intro to DADGAD online workshop, learning the logic of the fretboard and so on, I'd be happy to schedule one.
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  #25  
Old 12-02-2020, 07:23 AM
pegleghowell pegleghowell is offline
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If you like DADGAD just wait until you get into C tuning and it`s variants...a world of joy.
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  #26  
Old 12-04-2020, 08:30 AM
srbell srbell is offline
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If you want to achieve a somewhat similar sound to DADGAD but in standard tuning, check out Paul Baloche's "Open Chord Concept". It's a basic concept that for some reason many haven't seen before. I use it extensively. It leaves the 1 & 2 strings (e & b) open for all of the chords in the key. This gives something like the droning sound you get in DADGAD but without having to retune.
Here's a video where he explains it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAlh...l=AlinCacovean
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  #27  
Old 12-04-2020, 12:42 PM
Andyrondack Andyrondack is offline
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That's an interesting concept, might come in usefull when playing celtic type 'airs' if the melody can be played on strings 3 4 & 5 with a drone acompaniment on the other strings.
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  #28  
Old 12-06-2020, 08:39 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lauren_WarEagle View Post
I used to avoid alternate tunings altogether, but in recent years I’ve found that if I’m ever in a creative funk, I’ll put the guitar in DADGAD or open D and just start making up random, interesting-sounding chords/progressions that might otherwise be more difficult in standard tuning.

I remember thinking, why on earth did I wait so long to play in DADGAD!?
That John Prine cover of Paradise that is attached to your post above is mighty sweet Lauren. Are you doing the harmony vocals also?
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  #29  
Old 12-07-2020, 06:19 PM
Lauren_WarEagle Lauren_WarEagle is offline
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Originally Posted by SprintBob View Post
That John Prine cover of Paradise that is attached to your post above is mighty sweet Lauren. Are you doing the harmony vocals also?


Hi! Thank you so much — yes, the harmonies are mine as well. “Paradise” is my favorite John Prine song, and I thought I’d try out my own cover of it. Eventually, I’d like to add a little banjo to the mix, too!
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