Guitar tuning DAGDAD

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: Jeri
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 12:21 PM

I was off in my statement about the Zep recording.

The Zep page is here.

"White Summer" - This Page composition draws upon Davey Graham's "She Moved Through The Fair", credited to a traditional arrangement, but performed in a DAGDAD tuning."

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: Jeri
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 12:15 PM

Murray wrote: "I have no doubt somebody will write in and say that David Wilcox or one of the Wyndham Hill mob use just some such weird tuning on some obscure piece............. "

Try Davey Graham. From this article:

"Still, despite the rareness and deficiencies of some instruments, performing styles did improve in the Sixties. For guitarists, a quantum leap had been the arrival of Bert Jansch ("the first player who really created, not copied"). Davey Graham represented another departure, introducing DAGDAD tuning. "He did it to play Indian material", remembers Archie, "and it also proved for Scottish songs. Different tunings helped me personally. 'Dropped D' compensated for the weak 'bottom end' of the Kalamazoo. Mind you, DAGDAD confused folk, I'd say it took over a decade to become widely accepted.>

(Maybe it's a typo, but it seems to be a consistent typo. I found another web page on Led Zeppelin, saying as how they'd recorded a Davey Graham song in DAGDAD.)

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 12:00 PM

H is the German term for B natural--don't ask me why--and I had to laugh when someone decided to tell Murray about Tony McManus--

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 09:56 AM

My eyes are perfectly KO. thank you .....:-)

Murray

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 09:49 AM

That's okay Murray......The Dyslexia seems to be running rampant. Some of it may have rubbed off on you!!!!............LMAO........

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 09:47 AM

Uh, what I should have said above is
I think what I find really bizarre is the concept of having the fourth open string sounding a whole tone below the fifth string

Murray

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 09:42 AM

I was unaware that lutes had an H -string. I want one for my guitar.

As far as DAGDAD goes, perhaps the easiest way to realise how absurd the suggestion seems is to visualize that in order for the tuning to have any sonic integrity you would have to restring the guitar using your third (G) string in place of your fourth (D) string, and vice versa. How strange is that going to feel ? You would need to have a guitar permanently strung like this, so there had better be some really good sounds available.

I think what I find really bizarre is the concept of having the third open string sounding a whole tone below the fourth string. I don't personally know any open tunings in which this procedure is adopted and I find it very difficult to envisage what the unique advantage would be.

I have no doubt somebody will write in and say that David Wilcox or one of the Wyndham Hill mob use just some such weird tuning on some obscure piece .............

Murray

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 08:41 AM

The practice of changing the strings of the Lute for an easier playing is as old as the instrument. Lots of references can be found in the Arabian Nights.
I remember a short piece by Paganini for guitar in G major, very difficult to play at first, but easy when I changed the strings to GHDGHD (up).

Wilfried

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 08:20 AM

...uh-huh.........Guess my screen's dirty...........

DADGAD
DAGDAD

.......yeah, that must be it................

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: GUEST,A Dadgad'er
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 08:06 AM

Spaw

I was trying to be helpful and answer the original question pointing JB to a few well know sources. I have no idea what you are talking about or how you have miss-read my answer. I was not being critical or curt of any previous posts. Murray suggests it's now a useful tuning. Listen to some of Pierrie Bensusan It does not restrict him in any way or to any key. He is widely recognised as a master musician. I personally think its "horses for courses" There are many fantastic guitarists who stick to standard and there are many who have delved into alternate tunings. I enjoy the tuning because it can give a wonderful harp like sound. While backing other folk musicians you can provide a wonderful drone that really fills in the bottom end.

Regards

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 06:45 AM

Dear DADGAD'er,

Perhaps you lost track of the topic somewhere along the line. DADGAD is a well known and very popular tuning and it's talked about here on the 'Cat and elsewhere at great length. No one here is suggesting that DADGAD is weird or even remotely new to most of us. It is probably the most popular alternate tuning around.

The original post here was on DAGDAD which the poster was experimenting with and a few folks have questioned it's viability. Ted asked what the experience and motivation for the tuning was after Murray suggested it was "useless."

I'm curious too and wonder what it works on so well because I tried it both tuned up and down and didn't find it sounded great in any application I could think of, but then again, I don't go nuts over alt tunings all the time either....some seem to use nothing else. I think there may be a time and place for everything....so where does this work so well?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: GUEST,A Dadgad'er
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 04:14 AM

DADGAD is a most useful tuning used by many professional guitar players. Pierre Bensusan uses it exclusively. Tony McManus uses it extensively among many other tunings. There are many sources for this tuning. These two chaps have tuition videos on the Stefan Grossman web site. There playing is awesome. John Sherman has a few CD's and books that are good starting point if you want to learn a few finger picking tunes in DADGAD. Martin Solomon has also a book /CD package on this with some wonderful arraignments. I play mostly in this tuning, finger picking, and for backing in a session. It provides a beautiful drone behind the session playing and really fills out the music. Do a google search on these artists. I recently Bought a Bouzouki GDAD and I am looking for info sources, Perhaps we can swap notes ?

DADGAD'er

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 12:43 AM

I don't know if the tuning is as useless as Murray says, Ganainm, but, as I said, "someone worked out the tuning because it allowed them to do certain things that didn't work well in other tunings'-that some one would be you--so why don't you tell us how you've been using this tuning--

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 20 Jan 02 - 07:14 PM

alinact has asked a question which should have been asked right at the start of the thread.

Think about it. DAGDAD This is the most ridiculous tuning suggestion I have ever heard. There are plenty of useful tunings out there. This isn't one of them.

Murray

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: GUEST,alinact
Date: 20 Jan 02 - 10:36 AM

I hope this doesn't sound dumb but, JB, do you tune the D and G strings up or down. I tuned the D string down to G but it was too floppy and tinny, and when I went to tune up I chickened out at about F and a quarter.

Allan

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: M.Ted
Date: 19 Jan 02 - 01:11 PM

I am dubious of the value of any program that cranks out guitar chord positions, just because the program has no sense of what is useful and what isn't, and you're going to have a ton of stuff to sort through----alternate tunings mostly use a fairly small palate of positions and chord fingerings, and someone worked out the tuning because it allowed them to do certain things that didn't work well in other tunings--

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Jan 02 - 12:16 PM

Thanks for the chord guide, Jeri!

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Jan 02 - 12:09 PM

Here's the Asto Guitar Generator. You can plug in the notes your strings are tuned to and look for chords. You could also just use DADGAD chords and reverse the middle two strings.

Question: Why do people call DADGAD open D tuning when it has no F# and it does have a G?

I'm not talking about just JB's reference up there - I've seen plenty of others refer to it that way, and one thread about "Open D" was assumed by quite a few folks to be a discussion of DADGAD.

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 19 Jan 02 - 12:04 PM

Also, if yer gonna do a serious search fo the TGCB, you may as well download the crack that's out there as well, that way you don't have to pay for it...

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Jan 02 - 11:54 AM

Catspaw has always been a riddle wrapped in an enigma, ganainm. We here at the Mudcat apologize for his inappropriate "funnin", and hope his comment hasn't diverted the deadly serious intent of the thread.

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: Coyote Breath
Date: 19 Jan 02 - 11:07 AM

Thanks for the thread JB! and thanks to shanty! I've been befuddled by the same question many times.

Is there something comparable for banjo? I "know" of ten or so tunings but since I love to use 'full' chords in the "brush" part of frailing I felt limited not knowing what made what chord.

I always felt that if I knew music theory I could figure it all out but MT just doesn't register in my brain.

good stuff guys!

CB

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Jan 02 - 10:53 AM

Not a riddle....just a joke, Both are 3-D tunings. The joke is so old it's on Social Security and no 3-D tuning thread has escaped it.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: ganainm
Date: 19 Jan 02 - 10:40 AM

Thank you Shanty,

At least I could understand what you were were saying and felt you were trying to be helpful, whereas I couldn´t figure out what Mr. catspaw was trying to say.

I appreciate a straight answer to a perhaps unusual question and do not require a riddle for an answer. I´m not expecting any great solution-it was merely a question.

Regards.

JB

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: Shantymanuk
Date: 19 Jan 02 - 10:00 AM

When catspaw says you need special glasses, all I can think he means is those of the guiness variety that give musicians in Ireland and the world over such inspiration. When I was experimenting with tunings for a non-theoretical guitarist a couple of years ago, I used a program called "Guitar Chord Buster". It is shareware, gives you a 29 day trial, and costs about 40 bucks to buy after that. I needed this as I don't play guitar myself. It is still available (about 2.5Mb)for download - I found it easily this morning by searching for the title. (use quotation marks as above). You can input any tuning you like, and it will work out all the chords and alternative fingerings for you in that tuning, and will play them back through your pc to see if you like the sound, as all inversions sound quite different. All I can say is it will cost you nothing to try it. By the way, I have no connection with the author of this program, I just found it incredibly useful. Let me know how you get on.

Alan

Subject: RE: Help: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Jan 02 - 08:35 AM

Both tunings require the special glasses and unless you have them, most things will be flat.

Spaw

Subject: Guitar tuning DAGDAD
From: ganainm
Date: 19 Jan 02 - 07:56 AM

Hello guitar freaks out there!

I have been playing Irish Bouzouki for some years now using the tuning GDAD from low to high string. I decided to try this out with the guitar and came up with the following: DAGDAD, also from low to high string. This is not to be confused with the standard open D tuning "DADGAD. Obviously the low D would be an octave lower than the normal D. The sound is absolutely beautiful and is great if you want to combine melody with a droning low D. Does anyone have more information on this tuning or is there perhaps a chord chart? I have problems finding some minor cords.

Would really appreciate any help on this.

JB