Chords for DADGAD Motivation - Guitar Lesson Preview

[D] _ Hey, I want to tell you about a cool new [Bbm] development here at Totally Guitars.
A [Dbm] friend of mine, Doug Young, [D] has started working on some lessons for us, and we're
going to be putting them up as quick as he puts them out.
And Doug has [Dm] a long history of writing songs, recording albums, _ _ _ [Eb] pays _ attention to a [Db] lot of _ details.
And this lesson I'll show you a [C] little bit of here [Dbm] is one he put together [D] on DadGad Tuning.
[Db] Just kind of a quick introduction to DadGad and [Dm] some of the things you can do with it.
[D] Relatively short [C] lesson, and this is [Db] something that is available [Bb] at Totally Guitars [E] really
[A] as, or [B] only as [Db] part [G] of our Target program, which is our monthly subscription [Bb] program.
And right now [D] there are over 600 songs in there and [Db] all kinds of other lessons [Bb] on theory,
technique, [D] scales, [Bb] understanding, anyway.
So I [D] really encourage you to [Bbm] come out and come over to [A] Totally Guitars and check out
the [C] Target program and our [Eb] new editions [Em] of stuff from Doug Young.
Here's a little clip from [D] his brand new lesson, well as of now [A] as I'm shooting this, [Bbm] on an
intro to [Bb] DadGad.
Come visit us at Totally Guitars, especially if you like what you [C] see here from Doug.
[Dm] _ _ _
[N] _ _ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _
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Hi, I'm Doug Young, [Bb] and today I'd like to talk a little bit about [Ab] alternate tunings,
and in particular going to demonstrate some things with DadGad [B] Tuning.
And the [C] idea of what I'd like to discuss here for [Bb] just a few minutes is not so much the
how, but the why.
I'd like to talk about sort of the motivation [Ab] for using an alternate tuning like DadGad.
_ [D] _ Basically the reason to use [G] any particular tuning other than standard [B] is that it gives
you some benefit, some [A] sound that maybe you couldn't [Ab] get in standard tuning, or something
that's easier and just [B] gives you a different tool, different color palette to work with.
[Eb] So let's [Bb] take a look at DadGad just as an example.
First of all, how do you get into DadGad?
If you're in standard tuning, drop the sixth string, the first string, [Ab] and the second string
by a whole [Bb] step.
You end up with [D] a D, _ _ _ _ an octave below your fourth string, _ _ and a D on the top, an octave
above the fourth string.
_ _ _ And then you have an A, which [G] is an octave above the fifth string, _ [A] on the second string.
_ _ So you have D, [D]
A, [G] B, G, A, B, _ [A] otherwise known as DadGad.
_ So, _ [Em] one of the first things that you might discover if you [Ab] start exploring DadGad and
try and understand what you've got after you've changed all these strings, is that the second
and third strings are a whole step apart.
[G] _ _ _ _
You get kind of the [A] chopstick sound, _ _
_ _ [C] _ which is _ [D] interesting because it's something different
that you don't have in standard tuning.
So the [B] question is, what can we do with that?
Well, it turns out that that's actually kind of the key to [D] the [G] stereotype DadGad sound.
There's a lot of [Bm] things you can do with DadGad.
You don't have to have the stereotype DadGad sound, but [Db] that's mostly what I'm going to
show [G] you right now.
_ So we'll stick [C] to it.
First of all, since we've got these two sequential strings, [Ab] we can play two notes of the scale _
on different strings while [G] letting them ring. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ It doesn't [E] seem all that useful, but [Gb] let's go a little further.
I can play an F sharp on the fourth string, fourth fret, _ _ and then [G] a G, _ _ and then an [A] A. _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _
Kind of pretty.
_ [A] _ _ _ _
_ _ [Dbm] Three notes that ring [Gb] out close together, creating a sort of a harp [A] effect, or maybe
the effect [Ab] you think of as a piano with [Bb] the sustain pedal down.
_ Now we can go further.
[Db] If I [A] finger the [G] fifth string, seventh fret, I can play an E here, [Bb] and then [D] I can play
an F [Ab] sharp on the fourth [Bb] string, like I just [Ab] did, and then I have a [G] G and an [Ab] A on the open [E] strings.
_ [D] _ _ _ _
_ Let me give you a little more complicated example.
[Bb] _ _ [Eb] Here's our little [Bb] riff that I [B]
came up with.
[Bb] This is from a new [G] book that I just came out with, a Christmas book.
It's [Bb] called A Dadgad Christmas, 21 [Ab] tunes arranged for [G] dadgad tuning, [Bb] _ traditional Christmas [B] songs.
_ One [A] of the songs that I arranged in the book is Joy [D] to the World. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Bb] Pretty straightforward. _ _
I [Ab] wanted to do some things with this arrangement besides just play the melody.
I wanted to add some little interludes and some [Gb] interesting departures.
So [B] in the middle, in a couple of places between songs, I leveraged a part of the [D] melody, just
the tail end of the melody, _ _ [A] _ _ [D] _ _
[C] that part, made that be a motif, [Cm] _ and I play it in [C] different
spots of the [Bbm] guitar while taking [Ab] advantage of the open ringing strings and so [Bb] on.
Listen [G] to the effect that I get.
I'll try to play this somewhat like [Gb] the way I recorded [D] it. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Bb] So this sounds [C] like a very _ complex riff with a lot going [B] on, but most of it is simply playing
[Bm] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _ _
_ [E] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ that while [Dm] playing these open string arpeggios. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _