Mostly been talking about this on the whistle board, but over the weekend I added 4 videos showing simple reel backup patterns for D, G, Em, and Am reels on Drop-D tuned guitar, also downloadable chord charts:
Cheers,
Michael
Michael, I don’t generally hang out at the whistle board, so I hadn’t heard about your new tradlessons.com site. Congratulations. What a terrific idea. Your one flute video that I watched is quite good. I wish you much success.
I’m having great fun with it…
That’s great. I’ll check them out on my faster (OK “work” )computer in the morning. I’m trying to learn DADGAD backing (my first foray into playing guitar along with trying to learn Zouk and Mando, too) and I’ve been using the chord charts and progressions from your site. It’s been very helpful.
Do you think it unwise to try to learn chord shapes without use of a capo in DADGAD tuning, especially as a rank beginner on guitar? Or would you recommend learning with the capo and weaning later?
Great site.
Mike
I prefer Drop-D to DADGAD myself, because it works well with or without a capo and is very easy change to make on a “borrowed” guitar at a session. Figure if its good enough for John Doyle, its good enough for me. 
I’d learn both with and without capo, particularly for those tunes that switch between keys and/or modes between parts.
Cheers,
Michael
Just added four Drop-D videos to the site demonstrating several chord walk down/walk up sequences for D major and A minor tunes.
I’d agree with what Michael says about learning both un-capoed and capoed. Not just for tunes that switch keys though, some tunes just sound better w/ open shapes and some sound better using the capo. Plus key changes are easier. With some sets I’ll just switch w/ the open depending on the tune. It gives a good “shift” too. ex. Dmaj to G using no capo or E minor/dorian to A major if you’re capoed at 2 etc…Aminor/dorian works just fine w/ the open un-capoed positions and you don’t have to capo up to the 7th fret which can throw the pitch way off on some guitars depending on neck thickness and type of capo. Likewise w/ A major. I’ll capo at 2 and use the open shapes for Gmaj. This also gives you a lot more real estate to use as you still have futher up the neck you can go than if you capo at 7. If you can, I’d listen to Dahiti Sproule, I could be wrong, but I believe he rarely capos.
I prefer dadgad myself, except for John Doyle or Arty McGlynn, drop-d still sounds kind of “standard” to me, YMMV of course…that said the trap to avoid w/ dadgad is strumming full booming drone chords all the time. I like to use partial chords and lots of runs, mixing in some counter melody (which dadgad is very good for) and lots of inversions/substitutions…avoid the “drone zone”! Keep the left hand moving and follow the melody rather than simple chord progressions based on keys only. This has been said before, but knowing the tunes themselves is the best thing. The first thing I do when doing a lesson with a new student is to give them a recommended listening list as well as encourage them to get a whistle and try to learn some tunes if they don’t already play a melody instrument. Playing a melody instrument is a plus though, knowing the tunes is the most important thing, it’ll really help you improve.
Another good thing to learn is a hybrid cross-picking type right hand technique, this provides lots of lift and also works very well w/dadgad. It’s essential for 'zouk to IMHO.
Very nice additions to your site, Michael.
Thanks also, Corin. I agree about that temptation to play full strum chords. I just have to remember the times when I’ve been drowned out by an enthusiastic strummer while I’m playing flute. I listen to Daithi Sproule quite a bit; it’s kind of hard to do because he seems a bit low in the mix on the Altan albums. Tasteful, really, but difficult to hear when I’m trying to separate the guitar parts from tune bits. I also have a recording of Finn McGinty with Hans Araki. Finn plays DADGAD if I’m not mistaken.
Does anyone know if the guitar player from Last Night’s Fun (Denny …) plays in DADGAD, too? Regardless, I think that his playing is nice.
Regards, Mike
Actually, Finn MacGinty uses a tuning that is a little unusual, DAEADE, different, but quite effective in his hands, here’s some info on it:
http://www.acsalaska.net/~gcn/suffgael/suffchord.htm
I don’t know who the other guy is. Also, try to listen to the playing of Junji Shirota, he capos a lot but it doesn’t sound monotonous and homogenous.
Conceptually, Finn McGinty DAEADE tuning is just DADGAD shifted up (over) one string. Just pretend that the 5th string open A is really an open D, and voilà. You can see this easily by capoing McGinty tuning at the 5th fret, which gives (G)DADGA. Strings 5 to 1 are DADGAD with the top string missing, and you have an extra low G on the bottom string. To experiment with McGinty tuning without restringing or breaking strings, just tune it down a full step to CGDGCD and capo at the 2nd fret. It’s fun and interesting, though I play mostly dropped-D myself.