Subject: RE: The pros and cons of DADGAD
From:
GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser)
Date: 08 Nov 04 - 05:58 AM
As far as Irish sessions are concerned, I'm with McGrath on this one. For the most part, I find standard or dropped D tuning most versatile. Interestingly, we just had the Liverpool Irish Festival up here and Phillipe Masure and Michael Sands were both over. Phillipe especially seems to be known for using DADGAD but most of the time both he and Michael seemed to be using dropped D. John Chandler was playing in DADGAD (when he got the chance to play - he is the chairman of the festival so he was extremely busy. Also he knows as a musician when there are enough guitarists in one session)and I bashed away on the occasions I played in my usual mixture of standard, DADGAD and dropped D. It worked as often as not.
Michael also has a thread about the guitar and Irish music which he started a couple of weeks ago. Don't know how to do a link but it's well worth a look.
I remember seeing Micheal O Domhnaill with Relativity several years ago. It had been a long time since I had seen him play and I was surprised to see him mostly play in standard tuning. I suspect his choice to do that was largely down to the mixture of instruments he was playing with at the time.
Chris Nightbird, you say you are interested mostly in solo playing so I guess we were talking about different things as I mainly back Irish music. Yes, DADGAD is considered a 'Modal' tuning though that is a slightly overused term. What it seems to be shorthand for is the fact that, for instance, if you are backing a tune in D then using DADGAD you can play the tonic chord without including a third, whether major (F#) or minor (F Natural).
You can then use a variety of Dominant, Subdominant and relative major or minor chords which can be characterised by the presence or absence of ninths, suspended fourths or major or dominant sevenths in addition to the third. For the most part, this is what is going on when you hear the distinctive effects that most players are aiming for when they employ DADGAD in their playing.
So, for instance, if you are playing in D major you can shift to a subdominant chord (a G chord) which may or may not feature a strong ninth (the A, usually on the open 2nd string) as well as a strong third on the 5th string (B) giving it its characteristic warmth, a relative minor (say, B minor chord) featuring (often) a dominant seventh (the A again) or sometimes a ninth (a C#, which is also the major seventh of the tonic (D) chord. Your domainant (A major) chord may have a strong Sus4 (D) on the top string.
It goes on and on and your ears will tell you what works. Chord diagrams are helpful but if you have some theoretical grasp of what is going on you won't need them as much. Plus you'll be able to think about arrangements and other possibilities when you are away from the instrument.
Playing with your fingers probably gives you more opportunities to explore these sort of melodic and harmonic options than flatpicking but of course, there are always exceptions.
All the possibilities and options I pointed to above also apply, of course, to other altered tunings and they are all pretty addictive once you get stuck into them. But then, that's 90% of the fun.
You're gonna love it - especially if you use it to expand your possibilities and don't allow a new tuning to limit them.
|
sj
