DADGAD

DADGAD, D modal tuning or Celtic tuning is an alternative guitar tuning most associated with Celtic music, though it has also found use in rock and other genres. Instead of the standard EADGBE tuning, the six guitar strings are tuned, from low to high, DADGAD. Tuning to DADGAD from standard is accomplished by tuning the first, fifth and sixth strings down a whole step (two frets). The result is an open D suspended fourth chord (see suspended chord). Being suspended, the open tuning is neither intrinsically major nor minor. Tunings such as DADGAD are often referred to as modal tunings.

DADGAD was popularised by British folk guitarist Davey Graham.^[1] Graham employed the tuning to great effect in his treatments of celtic music, but also the folk music of India and Morocco. The first guitarists in Irish traditional music to use the tuning were Mícheál Ó Domhnaill and Dáithí Sproule; today it is a very common tuning in the genre. Other proponents of the tuning include Russian Circles, Luka Bloom, Stan Rogers, Jimmy Page, Artie Traum, Pierre Bensusan,^[2][3] Eric Roche, Laurence Juber, Tony McManus, Bert Jansch, Richard Thompson, Dick Gaughan, Soig Siberil, Gilles Le Bigot, Imaad Wasif, Jeff Tweedy, Paul McSherry, Kotaro Oshio, Ben Chasny and Trey Anastasio. English folk musician Martin Carthy now mostly uses a related tuning, CGCDGA, whose explicit evolution from DADGAD he describes in his book.^[4]

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.

The DADGAD tuning was used extensively by Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and The Yardbirds in the late '60s and '70s. While with The Yardbirds, Page recorded an instrumental entitled White Summer, itself inspired by the first recorded DADGAD tune, Davey Graham's arrangement of the traditional Irish tune 'She Moved Through the Fair'. On Led Zeppelin's eponymous first album, Led Zeppelin, he used this guitar tuning to perform "Black Mountain Side", though he detuned the entire guitar by one-half a step for the recording, so it was really D♭-A♭-D♭-G♭-A♭-D♭ (where the '♭' denotes a flattened note)--the piece which was strongly influenced by Bert Jansch's earlier arrangement of a traditional Irish song called "Blackwater Side" (though Jansch actually used a simpler 'drop D' tuning). Page later revisited the DADGAD tuning for the song "Kashmir", which appeared on the band's sixth album Physical Graffiti.

In addition, Trey Anastasio has employed DADGAD tuning for the song "The Inlaw Josie Wales" from the Phish album Farmhouse; while DADGAD is also used downtuned by Sevendust three different ways: 1 full step (only used on the song "Unraveling"); 1 1/2 steps (on many songs from the album Cold Day Memory album, as well as "Live Again" from their album Animosity; and 2 full steps (also on much of Cold Day Memory). The band Slipknot used this tuning for the song Circle, albeit with a capo on the second fret.

The British band TesseracT use a form of DADGAD tuning adapted for use on a 7 string guitar, which is the preffered tuning of founder member Acle Kahney (their guitars are tuned Bb-F-Bb-Eb-Gb-Bb-Eb). This tuning was also used by the defunct British band Fellsilent (of which Kahney was a member).

See also

• List of guitar tunings

References

1. ^ Bensusan, P: DADGAD Music: Compositions from Spices and Wu Wei, page 8, John August Music / Mel Bay Publications, 1996 ISBN 0-7866-1452-8
2. ^ Bensusan, P: The Guitar Book, HAL Leonard Publishing Corporation, 1985 ISBN 0-88188-620-3
3. ^ Bensusan, P: The Intuite Guitar Book, DADGAD Music (France), 2003
4. ^ Carthy, M: A Guitar in Folk Music, New Punchbowl Music, 1987.

External links

• Guitar Tunings - How To Tune To DADGAD
• A list of recordings with DADGAD Tuning