DADGAD
Encyclopedia
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
. 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
, 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
, Al Petteway
, 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.
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).
Guitar tuning
Guitar tunings almost always refers to the pitch of the open string, though some tunings may only realistically be attained by the use of a capo on an unmodified instrument....
most associated with Celtic music, though it has also found use in rock and other genres. Instead of the standard EADGBE tuning
Standard tuning
In music, standard tuning refers to the typical tuning of a string instrument. This notion is contrary to that of scordatura, i.e. an alternate tuning designated to modify either the timbre or technical capabilities of the desired instrument.-Bowed strings:...
, 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
Suspended chord
A suspended chord is a chord in which the third is omitted, replaced usually with either a perfect fourth or a major second , although the fourth is far more common...
). 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
Davey Graham
David Michael Gordon "Davey" Graham, originally spelled Davy Graham, , was a British guitarist and one of the most influential figures in the 1960s British folk revival...
. Graham employed the tuning to great effect in his treatments of celtic music, but also the folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
. The first guitarists in Irish traditional music
Music of Ireland
Irish Music is the generic term for music that has been created in various genres on the island of Ireland.The indigenous music of the island is termed Irish traditional music. It has remained vibrant through the 20th, and into the 21st century, despite globalizing cultural forces...
to use the tuning were Mícheál Ó Domhnaill
Mícheál Ó Domhnaill
Mícheál Ó Domhnaill was an Irish singer, guitarist, and composer, who was a major influence on Irish traditional music in the second half of the twentieth century...
and Dáithí Sproule
Dáithí Sproule
Dáithí Sproule is a guitarist and singer of traditional Irish music from Derry, Northern Ireland. His niece is the singer songwriter Claire Sproule.-Biography:...
; today it is a very common tuning in the genre. Other proponents of the tuning include Russian Circles
Russian Circles
Russian Circles is a three piece instrumental rock/metal band from Chicago. Russian Circles play instrumental, sprawling music which runs the gamut of heavy discordant metal, to soft delicate passages...
, Luka Bloom
Luka Bloom
Luka Bloom is an Irish folk-rock singer-songwriter. He is the younger brother of Irish folk singer Christy Moore.-Early life:...
, Stan Rogers
Stan Rogers
Stanley Allison "Stan" Rogers was a Canadian folk musician and songwriter.Rogers was noted for his rich, baritone voice and his finely crafted, traditional-sounding songs which were frequently inspired by Canadian history and the daily lives of working people, especially those from the fishing...
, Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...
, Artie Traum
Artie Traum
Artie Traum was a New Age Voice Award-winning guitarist, producer and songwriter. Traum's work appeared on more than 35 albums...
, Pierre Bensusan
Pierre Bensusan
Pierre Bensusan is a French-Algerian guitarist. As a sephardic Jew, his family came from Spain, Spanish Morocco and French Algeria. The genre of his acoustic guitar music is often characterized as Celtic, Folk, World music, New Age, or Chamber jazz. He has also published three books of music and...
, Eric Roche
Eric Roche
Eric Roche was an Irish fingerstyle guitarist.-Biography:Roche was born in New York City, but his family soon moved to Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland. He was a learnt accountant, but practised only for a short time before enlisting for classical guitar in 1992 at the London Musician's Institute...
, Laurence Juber
Laurence Juber
Laurence Juber is an English-born guitarist who currently lives in California. Born 12 November 1952 in Stepney, East London, he was raised and went to school in North London...
, Tony McManus
Tony McManus
Tony McManus is a Scottish Steel-string guitarist of Irish descent born in Paisley, Scotland. English guitarist John Renbourn described him as "the best Celtic guitarist in the world". His first self-titled album was released in 1996 on Greentrax Recordings...
, Bert Jansch
Bert Jansch
Herbert "Bert" Jansch was a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. He was born in Glasgow and came to prominence in London in the 1960s, as an acoustic guitarist, as well as a singer-songwriter...
, Richard Thompson, Dick Gaughan
Dick Gaughan
Richard Peter Gaughan usually known as Dick Gaughan is a Scottish musician, singer, and songwriter, particularly of folk and social protest songs.-Early years:...
, Soig Siberil, Gilles Le Bigot, Imaad Wasif
Imaad Wasif
Imaad Wasif is a Canadian singer, guitarist and songwriter whose music combines elements of both folk and rock music. Wasif’s music has been described as “unbelievably intense with sparkling, raga-influenced guitar and a mystic bent.”...
, Jeff Tweedy
Jeff Tweedy
Jeffrey Scot "Jeff" Tweedy is an American songwriter, musician and leader of the band Wilco. Tweedy joined rockabilly band The Plebes with high school friend Jay Farrar in the early 1980s, but Tweedy's musical interests caused one of Farrar's brothers to quit...
, Paul McSherry
Paul McSherry
Paul McSherry, hailing from west Belfast, began playing guitar in 1982 at the age of 14. Inspired by two other great guitarists from west Belfast, Maurice McHugh and Mark Kane, he was self-taught on DADGAD tuning....
, Kotaro Oshio
Kotaro Oshio
is an acoustic guitarist from Japan. Born in Osaka Prefecture, on February 1, 1968, he is best known for his work on the steel string guitar. Oshio is a part of Sony Music Japan's SME Records division.- Oshio's music :...
, Ben Chasny
Ben Chasny
Ben Chasny is an indie rock and psych folk guitarist. His primary projects are Six Organs of Admittance and Comets on Fire . He made his recording debut in 1996 with his heavy, free rock project Plague Lounge on "The Wicker Image", an LP released conjointly between the New World of Sound and Holy...
, Al Petteway
Al Petteway
Al Petteway is an American guitarist known primarily for his acoustic fingerstyle work. He won a Grammy award in 2005 for his rendition of "The Thornbirds".-Biography:...
, and Trey Anastasio
Trey Anastasio
Trey Anastasio is an American guitarist, composer, and vocalist most noted for his work with the rock band Phish...
. English folk musician Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy MBE is an English folk singer and guitarist who has remained one of the most influential figures in British traditional music, inspiring contemporaries such as Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and later artists such as Richard Thompson since he emerged as a young musician in the early days...
now mostly uses a related tuning, CGCDGA, whose explicit evolution from DADGAD he describes in his book.
The suitability of DADGAD to Celtic music
Celtic music
Celtic music is a term utilised by artists, record companies, music stores and music magazines to describe a broad grouping of musical genres that evolved out of the folk musical traditions of the Celtic people of Western Europe...
stems from the fact that it facilitates the use of a number of moveable chords
Guitar chord
In music, a guitar chord is a chord, or collection of tones usually sounded together at once, played on a guitar. It can be composed of notes played on adjacent or separate strings or all the strings together...
which retain open strings. These act as a drone
Drone (music)
In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. The word drone is also used to refer to any part of a musical instrument that is just used to produce such an effect.-A musical effect:A drone...
on either the bass or treble strings, approximating the voicings used in traditional Scottish and Irish pipe music
Bagpipes
Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones, using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. Though the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe and Irish uilleann pipes have the greatest international visibility, bagpipes of many different types come from...
.
The DADGAD tuning was used extensively by Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...
of Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
and The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds
- Current :* Chris Dreja - rhythm guitar, backing vocals * Jim McCarty - drums, backing vocals * Ben King - lead guitar * David Smale - bass, backing vocals...
in the late '60s and '70s. While with The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds
- Current :* Chris Dreja - rhythm guitar, backing vocals * Jim McCarty - drums, backing vocals * Ben King - lead guitar * David Smale - bass, backing vocals...
, Page recorded an instrumental entitled White Summer
White Summer
"White Summer" is a guitar instrumental by English rock guitarist Jimmy Page, recorded with both The Yardbirds and, later, with Led Zeppelin.-The Yardbirds version:...
, itself inspired by the first recorded DADGAD tune, Davey Graham
Davey Graham
David Michael Gordon "Davey" Graham, originally spelled Davy Graham, , was a British guitarist and one of the most influential figures in the 1960s British folk revival...
's arrangement of the traditional Irish tune 'She Moved Through the Fair'. On Led Zeppelin's eponymous first album, Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin (album)
Led Zeppelin is the debut album of the English rock band Led Zeppelin. It was recorded in October 1968 at Olympic Studios in London and released on Atlantic Records on 12 January 1969 in the United States and 31 March 1969 in the United Kingdom. The album featured integral contributions from each...
, he used this guitar tuning to perform "Black Mountain Side
Black Mountain Side
"Black Mountain Side" is an instrumental by English rock band Led Zeppelin, featured on the band's 1969 début album Led Zeppelin. It was recorded at Olympic Studios, London during October 1968.-Song structure:...
", 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
Kashmir (song)
"Kashmir" is a song by the English rock band Led Zeppelin from their sixth album Physical Graffiti, released in 1975. It was written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant over a period of three years, with the lyrics dating back to 1973.-Overview:The song centres around a signature chord progression...
", which appeared on the band's sixth album Physical Graffiti
Physical Graffiti
Physical Graffiti is the sixth studio album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, released on 24 February 1975 as a double album. Recording sessions for the album were initially disrupted when bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones considered leaving the band...
.
In addition, Trey Anastasio
Trey Anastasio
Trey Anastasio is an American guitarist, composer, and vocalist most noted for his work with the rock band Phish...
has employed DADGAD tuning for the song "The Inlaw Josie Wales" from the Phish
Phish
Phish is an American rock band noted for its musical improvisation, extended jams, and exploration of music across genres. Formed at the University of Vermont in 1983 , the band's four members – Trey Anastasio , Mike Gordon , Jon Fishman , and Page McConnell Phish is an American rock band...
album Farmhouse
Farmhouse (album)
Farmhouse is the eighth official studio album by the American rock band Phish. The tracks were recorded at The Barn, frontman Trey Anastasio's studio in Vermont. The album was released on May 16, 2000, by Elektra Records...
; while DADGAD is also used downtuned by Sevendust
Sevendust
Sevendust is an American heavy metal band from Atlanta, Georgia. Formed in 1994 by bassist Vince Hornsby, drummer Morgan Rose and guitarist John Connolly. After their first demo, lead vocalist Lajon Witherspoon and guitarist Clint Lowery joined the group...
three different ways: 1 full step (only used on the song "Unraveling
Unraveling (song)
Unraveling is the official first single off album Cold Day Memory by heavy metal band Sevendust. On February 5, 2010 the song made its debut on Sirius XM's Octane station. The full song is currently streamed on their Myspace....
"); 1 1/2 steps (on many songs from the album Cold Day Memory
Cold Day Memory
Cold Day Memory is the eighth studio album by American alternative metal band Sevendust released on April 20, 2010. This album marks the return of guitarist Clint Lowery who previously left Sevendust in 2004 to work with Dark New Day...
album, as well as "Live Again
Live Again (Sevendust song)
-Chart position:Billboard...
" from their album Animosity
Animosity (Sevendust album)
Animosity is the third studio album by Sevendust, released on November 13, 2001 through TvT Records. The album appeared on the Billboard 200, remained there for thirteen weeks and peaked at 28 on December 1, 2001. Animosity was certified gold on March 11, 2002 through the Recording Industry...
; and 2 full steps (also on much of Cold Day Memory). The band Slipknot
Slipknot (band)
Slipknot is an American heavy metal band from Des Moines, Iowa. Formed in 1995, the group was founded by percussionist Shawn Crahan and bassist Paul Gray...
used this tuning for the song Circle, albeit with a capo on the second fret.
The British band TesseracT
Tesseract
In geometry, the tesseract, also called an 8-cell or regular octachoron or cubic prism, is the four-dimensional analog of the cube. The tesseract is to the cube as the cube is to the square. Just as the surface of the cube consists of 6 square faces, the hypersurface of the tesseract consists of 8...
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
Fellsilent
Fellsilent were a British experimental metal band from Milton Keynes. They possessed a technical, polyrhythmic style similar to bands such as Meshuggah and Sikth. The band also focused on some melodic elements...
(of which Kahney was a member).