Been playing the whistle now for several months, and the flute for a couple of weeks, but I’m a seasoned guitar player.
I’ve never played ITM music on the guitar, but it might be a good time to start. I just tried out this DADGAD thing last night. It’s pretty rockin.
Yup, it’s a nice tuning. To be honest, though, unless you’re picking out a tune, there’s no great advantage. It sounds different, and somebody told be that Joni Mitchell tended to tune her guitar DADGAD, but strumming comes out as strumming no matter how the axe is tuned.
But having said that: try picking out “over the ocean”! You hardly have to move your fingers! Even Planxty Hewlett is easy to pick.
When I mentioned DADGAD to a friend of mine she immediately countered with Open D. It’s the same as DADGAD but the second string is tuned to Fsharp. What’s the difference? Easier chords. My stubby wee fingers won’t do half the fingerings on my handy DADGAD chord chart - some of them hold down three strings across five frets. What am I, a Lemur?
Open G and Open D are a gift to Folk guitarists. And I certainly agree that DADGAD is wonderful for picking.
DADGAD is Dick Gaughans favourite tuning, Joni Mitchell uses it a little but has about eighty other tunings to call on as well.
If you do a Google on DADGAD Tabs you will find a lot of good stuff.
Slan,
D.
Where does Dropped D fit into all this? Is that just standard tuning only with a D on the bottom? Whatever it is, it seems to be the latest rage around here as more folks hear John Doyle’s playing of it.
Correct Cathy.
Dropped D is just one string different than standard, the low E is "dropped " down one tone to D.
Very effective tuning.
Slan,
D.
Yes, drop D just means tuning the 6th string down to D. Lots of folky and blues players use this. DADGAD and open D are favoured by C&W players. Classical guitarists poo-poo open tunings, but there are lots of tunings available. Jimmy Page is a more modern example, but Robert Johnson was God as far as open tuning.
There’s a book called The DADGAD Book with some examples of playing ITM. Its not the greatest example, but it is a good intro to open tunings if you are new to them.
djm
It sounds differnt to me. There are a lot of consecutive melody notes that you can leave ringing, and it sounds kinda like a harp to me.
I’m mostly interested in stuff where you play the melody on the higher strings, and use the lower strings as drones. I do most of my strumming in standard tuning (though open tunings are absolutely lovely for slide playing, and when I want to whip out my banjo licks.)
Try the Celtic Guitar Forum: http://forums.celticguitartalk.com/viewforum.php?f=10&sid=c9fa3315ed1cb4ef370575f37fd4de65
I have a set of chord charts in .PDF format that I used based on each tune key and mode on the Traditional Irish Music pages on my site:
Click on the Traditional Irish Music link, then on the Drop-D or DADGAD links.
Duly swiped and forwarded to some guitar-playing friends. THANK YOU, MICHAEL!!!
I’m starting to honestly think I’m the only ITM guitarist left that only really uses standard tuning… Not that I don’t enjoy alternate tunings ( LOVE open G) but I guess I just like to be ready when someone goes into a tune in F without having to go " hold on, wait till I get a capo…" The only others i seem to come across that use standard are the ones who can’t really play yet (ITM at least).
Not only is it not the greatest, it’s totally useless for learning accompaniment. It does have some tabs for fingerstyle tune playing. The tabs could also be used for flatpicking. There are a kazillion “essential” chords but there isn’t any way to discriminate between those that are really essential and those that are not. John Doyle gives relatively few good dropped D chords in the book that accompanies his video. It’s on Homespun Tapes. For getting into DADGAD chords, I would use Michael Eskin’s material. Another web resource for DADGAD is Han Speek’s DADGAD page. His chord chart is not very useful but the stuff on chord scales is OK but you should be cautious about indiscriminate use of them.
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.speek/dadgad/
Steve
The reason I like DADGAD and prefer it to some other tunings are these.
It’s a modal tuning (suspended fourth) which means that you don’t get a minor or major third as you would with other open tunings. The ambiguity is helpful as is the unresolved suspended feel. Unlike open D, every unplucked string resonates in the ambiguous tuning which gives that distinctive ringing sound. That’s also one reason to prefer it to dropped D. (I use dropped D when I’m thinking standard tuning but want to get an alternating bass going down to the low D or want a drone down there.)
Octaves are very easy to play for a fuller melody sound.
Unison melody on 2nd and 3rd string is very easy to play, again for a fuller melody sound.
If you’re playing melody and picking out open string notes to combine with it you can easily get very interesting partial chords which will harmonise with simple folk melodies. You shouldn’t just chug away producing slops; you should have practiced progressions and you should know in advance where they fit and where they don’t.
If you fall in love with it and practice like mad, you can use DADGAD for everything. I prefer to use it specifically for the effects I mentioned and use other tunings for their virtues when appropriate.
Hey Michael, that’s a great site you have 
Thanks!