DADGAD

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 03:09 AM

very good points, Nick.
the partial capo gives similiar effects to dadgad, but allows ease to play quickly in standard, without the problems of retuning extensively.
however with the partial capo you cannot use dadgad in first position with all open strings ringing, the first postion partial capo is effectively putting you in to dadgad in second position EBEABE, plus the ringing strings in this position EBEABE WILL BE LOUDER THAN THE PARTIAL CAPO STRINGS. only minor disadavantages but still disadvantages compared to dadgad.
   however i like the partial capo and find it useful, for songs like bold reynard the fox and lovely joan, that have a particular type of chord progression or in a particular mode[ it sounds like dorian[ but i have not botherd to check assidously,]
lovely joan, sounds dorian to me i think if i was in a dorian and using standard for lovely joan i would use approximately aminor and g chords occasional c major, but with partial capo a COMPLETELY different effect is obtained, HOWEVER TO SUIT MY VOICE, USING A PARTIAL CAPO I WOULD HAVE TO PLACE I Tbehind the ordinary capo ON FRET 7, about as high as it can go effectively ,exposing another limitation of the partial capo imo practically you can only use it on fret 2345.possibly 6 okay maybe for song accompaniment, but restricting you to five keys

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 08:37 AM

I've read a lot of good points in this thread. I play in DADGAD a lot. Not because of treating the tuning like I'm on some holy quest (I've met a couple people who treat it like that) but because I'm lazy. I liked the sound, but also became aware of the limitations. I like working around the limitations. I find playing in F is easier than in standard, for example. Partial chords are my friend. At the song circle I used to attend I would accompany a lot of the other musicians, who were playing in standard, with single note fills, sometimes capoing to whatever fret they were on, or just playing uncapoed on the notes that sounded good. No one ever asked me to not play along.

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 09:11 AM

I think I agree with Jerry about the 'traditional' way of teaching modes, though it is a good idea to use C major as a base if the person has a grasp of C major at the outset. Otherwise it is easy to give the idea that dorian always has to start on a D note. But I maintain my point that all explanations need to be clear and unambiguous if they are to be effective, and I think this applies whether or not you use musical examples.

For me, assertions that guitarists tend to think in harmony not melody might be based on somewhat limited ideas of what guitarists do. I suppose that even the much derided technique of 'shredding' (which I have observed but not attempted) involves a mixture of both?

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 10:23 AM

get them to a piano,then not only show c major show them g major , then show them the mode in relation to c major then g major , that way they undertstand THAT THE DORIAN MODE AND ANY MODE JUST LIKE THE MAJOR KEYS can start in more than one place.
psued can we now get back to DADGAD

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: gillymor
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 10:30 AM

I gave DADGAD a try for backing Irish tunes and didn't care for it. I find Drop-D gives you meatier chords and you can get the "modal" sound as well with a bit of finger stretching and the lower 3 strings still form the DAD so you can get those chordal runs down there. I discovered that the players whose styles appealed to me most, McGlynn, Brady, Doyle all used mostly Drop-D for accompaniment.
As for fingerstyle, it's a barrel of fun and you can do a lot with a minimal amount of left hand work (but you can do a tremendous amount with a lot of left hand work, witness Pierre Bensusan who adopted it as his primary tuning).

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: gillymor
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 10:44 AM

It should have read, "As for fingerstyle, DADGAD is a barrel of fun" (though Drop-D is too).
One of these days I'll learn to proof read before posting, not after.

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: GUEST,The real Some Bloke
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 10:47 AM

Another some bloke threw dorian into the debate, which is rather irrelevant or confusing... Not sure what he means but he doesn't mean me...

Modal chords, power chords or whatever you wish to call them merely miss the third interval and therefore have a droning quality that allows both major and minor within the same structure. I love playing in DADGAD as it makes picking out a melody between singing or a counterpoint whilst singing both easy and effective. I also (in standard tuning) do something similar with a three string capo.

As another "some bloke" mentions dorian, I would say that the other mode widely used in traditional ballads, mixolydian can be effective when you largely ignore the third interval too, as subdominant fourths sound so good when looking for a nice cadence. Merely flattening one note in a scale can make such a difference to the chords available without odd sounds.

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: Nick
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 12:30 PM

Well I've had some fun exploring prompted by some of the comments from The Sandman (and also looking back at a video we discussed some while back with Martin Carthy about choosing tunings) mostly about the G to A interval in DADGAD being at its heart. And the problems of using a capo/s too high up a guitar. If I remember the Martin Carthy he was saying that you look for tunings to give you the sound you want and/or to sort out a problem (like not being able to reach or finger something - which is one of the reasons I play a number of things in EADGCE but that's by the way)

And that has taken me to explore E A D F# B C# as a tuning for accompanying things in Bm/A. The strings aren't massively slack. Only two strings to retune but enough of a shift to break out of habits and to rely on my ears rather than the shapes of the chords I use in standard. Not a great strumming tuning so far but still exploring

So not quite on topic but grew out of the discussion.

Dick, if you were to have a little experiment for some of the songs you mentioned in Bm/A you might find it interesting. There are some nice chords like loads of easy Bminors - x20030 or x24300 or x20201 etc - lots of As x02300 or x02323 etc but lots of interesting (to me) sounds when playing some of the open strings with pull offs etc- if you wanted a G 320330 is interesting (but you'd get thrown out of a strict dorian session for introducing a wrong chord (LOL). But an easy G#dim (x20201) to keep dorian in the discussion (WTF?).

I just leave it as a slight tangent but in the spirit of DADGAD.

I even checked out the Guitar tuning database which I had never heard of or knew existed until today. Noone has yet added this particular tuning so it is probably mad or I can claim it as all my own (haha!)

Now you can tell we are in lockdown (and I'm retired) that it made me think about it from another angle (for me). Sort of going back to first principles and thinking 'what notes do I actually need to accompany or play this tune and what sound do I want?'

This may be all very theoretical and useless to people but it entertained me thinking it out and creating it and it will help me in the future when I am trying to work out alternatives to some of the strange tuning and capoing exploits that people use to accompany songs when they 'know how to play it in DADGAD or something' but can't sing it there. I will never have to work it out again and it should deal with every tuning and multiple capo combination possible. I don't think I have come across anything similar that does the same. And - yes- I can work it out on a guitar what the notes are and their relationships but this is quicker for me

I have a number of people I know who play Dougie Maclean songs 'note for note' in open C (which is a nightmare on many guitars tuning wise) with capos way up the guitar. There is usually an easier way of finding those notes!

There's a little Excel spreadsheet shared on dropbox here called What notes do I need calculator which looks at the actual notes that are being used and whether there might be other ways to simply tune without capoing at the nth fret. I've left it set with standard tuning, a capo at the seventh fret and a partial capo above that to ape DADGAD and it suggests to be that DGDGCD might be a good starting point as a tuning to give you a lot of the benefits of that configuration.

Or it may all be way too mad and confuse the hell out of people.

I've had fun though...

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 05:49 PM

You get that one-tone step in the standard tunings for the Arabic oud (D,G,A,DGc) and Turkish cümbüş (A,B,EAdg) - neither does chords, but it works melodically.

The DADGAD player I've heard most of at close quarters is a singer who has his vocal chords permanently set at 11. The simpleminded and VERY LOUD chords beautifully complement the abrasive expressionless bellowing.

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: Nick
Date: 11 Apr 20 - 06:53 PM

Not a fan then, Jack?

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Apr 20 - 03:49 AM

thanks nick, that tuning looks interesting

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Apr 20 - 04:10 AM

excuse the thread drift, i have noticed how so many guitar tutor books never mention that it is not necessary to play all six strings at once in standard ,many jazz guitarists use middle 4 strings or top4 strings or bottom four strings, anyone here had experience of using this idea in dadgad

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: GUEST,Phil Cooper from the laptop downstairs
Date: 12 Apr 20 - 08:29 AM

Yes, I do a lot of single note fills on the middle four strings. I was mentioning that in my comment below, when backing up other song circle participants. If I was uncapoed, and someone was playing something in Bb, or some other non-friendly key, I could find my notes on the neck and work around what they were playing, just like being in standard tuning on the A, D, and G strings. I always made a point of not playing louder than the person who was singing.

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: GUEST,Jerry
Date: 12 Apr 20 - 09:45 AM

I’m not a jazz player, but it’s a lot easier to play sixth and ninth chords, if you stick to the middle four strings in standard tuning. X5455X being D9th and X5545X being G6th, but in DADGAD that would be X5457X and X5547X and much less finger friendly surely.

Subject: RE: DADGAD
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Apr 20 - 02:56 PM

Phil, that is clever.