hi all
im a guitar player for years , but now i have a keen interest in Traditional music , because im learning the language i guess , but i would love to try out DAGDAD tuneing but i cant find the chord shapes or any practice ideas , some help would be greatly appreciated ,
Go raibh maith agaibh ( thank youse ,) in Advance
There is a book/CD combination called The Irish DADGAD book by Sarah MacQuaid, published by Ossian. The examples are woefully slow and inadequate, but it does provide an introduction to open tuning, plus the chord shapes you are asking about. It is a good place to start from. If you look a bit further, you will discover that there are a few other books on open tunings for ITM, such as Traditional Irish Guitar by Paul de Grae, also published by Ossian. This takes you a step further than the previous book, and shows you more options.
Hope that helps,
djm
You can get some DADGAD material on the web. Han Speek has a DADGAD guitar page for those interested in Irish backup. It has some interesting “chord scales.” There are too many chords in the chord charts however. For chords check out Michael Eskin’s DADGAD material.
http://home.hccnet.nl/h.speek/dadgad/
http://members.cox.net/eskin/DADGAD.html
I have a book on Irish backup guitar by de Grae but he doesn’t use DADGAD in the book I have. He likes the tuning DADEAE. One look at that should tell you that there are a disprotionate number of tunes in the key of A. Unless you’re interested in some fingerstyle tabs in DADGAD, the McQuaid book is not good. It does have a lot of chords for those who want a lot of chords.
A lot of folks around here are having fun with dropped-D tuning. I think former Solas guitarist John Doyle is that movement’s spiritual leader, as it were. He has a DVD & book out via Scoiltrad (they’re the ones still open, right?) and it seems like a really good general intro even to this non-guitarist (blame it on my beau and ‘The Gooseberry Bush’). John Williams accompanies on the concertina and button box, so there’s some great playing there, too.
It’s more of a rock-n-roll approach I would suspect, but I like the way Doyle shows how accompaniment can help drive a tune and shape a set.
I also like that he insists a guitarist should know and be able to sing a tune the same as any melody player.
Nah, they’re the ones that are toast. I think you mean MadForTrad or something. (Or none of the above? I don’t associate John with any of those, though I’ve never looked to buya guitar tutorial.)
I’ve got that John Doyle tutorial on videotape. It’s pretty good. I believe that Artie McGlynn was using dropped D before Doyle came along. Anyway, you should be able to get the tape or maybe a DVD from Homespun Tapes.
John Doyle has a DADGAD tuning based CD ROM tutor available through MadForTrad ( www.madfortrad.com ).
Aaah, that’s the one I meant. My fella also has the Mad for Trad CD, but hasn’t treated me to an afternoon of that yet. 