Chords for Introduction to DADGAD, from Celtic Guitar with Tony McManus

[Fm] _ _ [Bb] _ _ [F] _ _ _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ [A] Well, if there's one tuning, one alternate guitar tuning
that's associated with Celtic music more than any other,
it is the infamous dadgad, D-A-D-G-A-D.
And I want to talk a little bit about what the tuning is,
how it arose, how you get there,
and what you can do with [D] it.
_ There it is.
So, what is it?
It is, to my interpretation,
it's an altered version of open D.
I mean, you normally get there from standard tuning,
but that's not how it arose.
It arose, _ I _ _ think, _ [G] as a variation of that.
Now, that [D] is _ straight _ _ _ open D tuning.
You can think of that as your cowboy E chord in standard.
Take those notes, tune the whole thing down a whole step,
_ _ _ [Gb] and [E] that's what you'll get.
That's open D tuning.
It's a D [D] major chord.
D-A-D, F-sharp, A, D.
_ And this tuning is as old [Eb] as the guitar itself, I'm [D] sure.
_ [F] _
[D] _ [G] _ _ _ I can't play slide guitar to save my life,
but this tuning has been used for that.
One finger [A] gets you [D] _ [G] your three chord [F] trick.
[G] There's your [A] four chord, [D] five chord.
There's [Em] your one.
[D] _ _
[G] _ _ [C] _ [G] I'm [D] _ _ _
[Eb] a huge Joni Mitchell fan.
[D] She used that tuning a great deal.
So, _ _ what are the disadvantages?
Well, how do you play [Em] D minor?
_ _ [Dm] _ You [D] _
_ _ [Gb] can do it, but there's [D] a [Bm] _
_ [D] major third
waiting [G] to trip you up.
And you could tune [Dm] down, I guess,
[B] but then how do you [D] play D major?
So, _ _ _ _ _ tuning to straight chords is a useful thing,
but it's kind of limiting _ in a general sense.
It narrows your harmonic focus.
Unless you want to spend the rest of your life
figuring out how to play in G-flat minor
when you're tuned to open D.
I'm sure it can be done,
but whether it's worthwhile doing it, I don't know.
Davy Graham, in 1964, so the story goes,
came up with a brilliant idea,
which was forget all about the third. _
[G] _ _ _ Take that third string up to a [D] fourth,
_ _ and then you have D-A-D, [G] G, A, D,
[Eb] which are the constituents of dadgad,
but think of it in terms of intervals.
It [D] goes root, fifth, root, [G] fourth, [D] fifth, root.
There's no third.
So, _ you can play in D major _ _ very easily.
You can play in D minor.
[Dm] _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _ [G] With a bit of effort, you can play in [Bb] B-flat,
_ _ _ [Am] _ _
[D] _ _ and you can play in other keys.
You have three _ strings tuned to D,
so it does, regardless of your level of [Abm] virtuosity,
it does _ favour, let's put it that way,
it favours certain keys above others,
but there's a lot to be explored in this tuning,
and it does, for various reasons,
lend itself very easily to Celtic music,
to the extent that when I started playing in the 70s,
this tuning was almost universal.
Virtually everybody, with the exception, I think,
of Archie McGlynn in Ireland.
Everyone played in dadgad tuning,
_ [Dm] _ and [D] I use it for, not so much for accompaniment,
like many do, I use it for playing the jigs and reels
and airs and other things.
_ So, [A] let me give you a little _ insight
into how this tuning works.
You have, [G] _ _ between your third and second strings,
_ [A] _ _ [G] a whole tone interval. _
[A] _ _ _ [D] So, [Gb] that's consecutive strings being part of a scale,
_ _ [A] like on the harp.
[D] _ [Bm] _ _ _ [D] _ _
_ So, those little _ triads, [G] little _ three-note clusters,
[A] _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] make it very easy to play melodies across the strings.
So, let's nail down a D major scale.
I know scales are very [D] tedious. _
[Db] _ [Abm] _ [D] _ _ _ _ What I [G] want to get at is the [D] difference
between that [Db] [B] and [A] _ [Gbm] _
[E] _ [D] _ _ this. _ _ _
[G] _ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ [D] _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ [Eb] Now, that's a question of playing across the strings.
That's what's going on.
[D] If you think _ [Db] _
[D] _ _ [G] of that scale, what strings are [D] you using?
_ [A] _ [Abm] _ _ [A] Two, [G] [Gb] three, [E] four, [D] four, four.
_ [Db] _ [G] _
[D] _ [Bm] _ _ [D] _ _ But here, _ it goes one, [A] two, [Bm]
[A] three,
two, three, [G] four, five, four.
You're never using the same string twice in a row.
So, the result of that is that the preceding note
is still sounding when you play [D] the next note.
_ [Db] _ [D] _ _ _ _ [A] _
[G] _ _ [Em] _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [E] And you [G] can extend it, you can start there.
_ [D] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
_ That's two full octaves without hitting
the same string twice in a row.
_ Then, the next thing to do would be to try different keys. _ _
And different keys are radically more difficult
in tab-guitar tuning, but they can be done.
B-flat, for example, should you want [Bb] to play in B [Ab]-flat.
[Dm] _ _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _
I [C] cheated there.
[Bb] [E] I used the same [Bb] string twice.
You could.
[D] _
[Ab] _ [G] _ [Gb] You could do the [Bb] stretch, but.
[D] _ [Dm] _ _
_ _ [Cm] _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [D]
So, the favorite keys would be D.
There's a D with no third.
It's [Em] just Ds and As, roots [D] and fifths.
[Am] A minor, A [A] major.
_ _ [C] _ _
C can [F] be done, F, _ [G] G.
_ _ _ _ [C] _ _ _ [F] _
_ [G] _ [C] _ _ _ _ And others, [B] B minor.
_ [A] _ _ _ [B] Because once you and I play the sunset,
which [Gbm] is an F-sharp minor.
_ There it is.
[D] _
_ So, it's a beautiful tuning for _ _ articulating melodies
in a way that the notes ring into one another.
That's the whole ethos, I think, of tab-guitar tuning.
And certainly, the reason why it became so popular.
And it's still, _ today, being explored in great detail
and to great effect by many, many players.
Pierre Bensusan would be one.
Martin Simpson.
_ _ [Ab] Several others.
It's used a great deal, and still,
in rhythm guitar and Irish music. _ _
To an extent, people began to kind of sound the same.
But there's certain [Am] players who are really [G] using it
to [D] great effect.
Again, I don't use it much for accompaniment.
I use it [Db] for actually playing the tunes.
And over the course of these lessons,
we'll use this tuning to explore some of the dance music
from Ireland and Scotland and elsewhere. Who knows?
Brittany, maybe.
_ _ [Fm] _ _ _ [Bb] _ _ [F] _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ [C] _ [Fm] _ _ _ [N] _