I've been messing with DADGAD!

[badgermark]

I love DADGAD. Most of my bands songs are in drop D, so opening up the bottom two strings to A and D gives a super lush sound when all 6 strings are played.

Play an octave chord at the 9th fret, the F# on the 5th string, and let the open low D, A and high D ring out. Tidy.

[Lezard]

I've been attempting to work through one of Tony McManus' fingerstyle guitar DVDs
mainly does DADGAD and a few very strange tunings like DAAEAE, CGCGCD and CGDGCD for imitating bagpipes.
He's amazing!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLVsrlObxO8&feature=related

[Dr. Stein]

Not a huge fan if I'm honest, but back when I was trying my hand at some Andy McKee acoustic stuff I spent some time in ECDGAD which is great. Nothing ever seems to sound wrong...

[MrBump]

I like your song, Andy, but I struggle with alternative tunings.  Standard tuning is hard enough for me to get my megre brain around...

[Elliot]

choucas09 no wonder you struggled to play it in DADGAD - Jansch plays Blackwaterside in simple drop D capo'ed at the second threat.  You can get the tab in Stephan Grossman's British Fingerstyle Guitar from Mel Bay.

[choucas09]

Elliot, just checked and you speak the truth. However the tab I had at the time was for DADGAD. It seemed to work as such, but I was too lazy to see it through.

[WezV]

I like your song, Andy, but I struggle with alternative tunings.  Standard tuning is hard enough for me to get my megre brain around...

i got a copy of this ages ago
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alternate-Tunings-Compact-Reference-Library/dp/0825612519/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293816534&sr=8-2

all it really does is tell you how to retune the guitar and gives some useful chords and scales for each tuning - it really easy to start messing with them.  just playing a few simple chords sounds refreshingly different

nice pdf here too which is much more in depth than that book
http://www.guitargearheads.com/content/tools/alttunings/alltunings.pdf

[Elliot]

Choucas I should say that Jimmy Page plays Black Mountainside (he rip off of Jansch's Black Waterside) in DADGAD - Apparently he asked Al Stewart how Jansch played it at a session and Stewart had worked it out in DADGAD (believing that's how Jansch played it) - so Stewart taught it to Plaige, who then claimed the arrangement as his own by giving it a slightly different name!

[MrBump]

I like your song, Andy, but I struggle with alternative tunings.  Standard tuning is hard enough for me to get my megre brain around...

i got a copy of this ages ago
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Alternate-Tunings-Compact-Reference-Library/dp/0825612519/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293816534&sr=8-2

all it really does is tell you how to retune the guitar and gives some useful chords and scales for each tuning - it really easy to start messing with them.  just playing a few simple chords sounds refreshingly different

nice pdf here too which is much more in depth than that book
http://www.guitargearheads.com/content/tools/alttunings/alltunings.pdf

Good stuff, Wez - I'll have a read.

[shobet]

Nice link Wes, that will give me some interesting reading for next year.

[WezV]

i found it earlier whilst looking for that book.  It has a mandoguitar tuning (for normal guitar)... i am going to have to see if that works on the mandoguitar i just made (in standard tuning) since it wont be picked up for another few months (and i may as well play)

[Andrew W]

My acoustic guitar spends most of its time in DADGAD. If you're looking for another player who uses the tuning the amazing Pierre Bensusan is really worth a listen.