DADGAD Chords

[FingerBone Bill]

I've just cobbled together something I've had difficulty finding on the web.

 

Basic DADGAD chords!

 

The criteria being that they are not too exotic; cover every key AND they are actually PLAYABLE by the average guitarist blessed with only four fingers and one thumb! Oh yes and that the sheets are actually big enough to be read by your average musician, who probably doesn't have the eyesight of a pergrine falcon, at arms length.

 

So with the help of www.jguitar.com I made my own.

 

It covers Major, minor, min7, Maj7 & min7b5 in all keys. (I may add more later but that should be a good start.)

 

Please feel free to download a copy

 

dadgadChords.pdf

 

If you download a copy and you find it helpful give this post a bump so others can find it.

[slider]

hey buddy. it's your namesake. DADFGAD is alot of fun.

your chord charts are really nice. thanks for posting.

I hope others out there that play with alternative tunings checks this out.

 

Im fooling around with C#m7 on one lap steel.

[digitalsnipe]

Thanks for taking the time and making the effort. I just tuned one of my guitars to dadgad the other day then asked myself: Now what? Your ears must have been ringing.

 

I have been curious about the buzz I have been reading with this tuning and have heard pieces performed in it. It definitely departs from standard tuning but I'm not so sure yet it is all that buzz-worthy, IMO. I have used open E tuning and found the chord structures, my own discoveries, to be much more playable and revealing. Will have to give dadgad a little more time to "see" the benefits.

 

Again, thanks for posting.

[dmt]

I was just playing around with this tuning for a few hours today.

 

I found it works better in a way for me by just messing around and finding my own fingerings (through trial and error) without neccessarily knowing exactly what I'm doing.

 

One purpose of an alternate tuning is to make certain things you want to do easier -- for example, giving you an open drone string [of the right pitch for your song] to work with, or making a difficult or even impossible chord(s), arpeggio(s) or run(s) fall easily under your fingers.

 

However, there is another purpose to alternate tunings: To take you out of your standard playing, to make you approach the instrument with all of your technique intact, but with an open "beginner's mind" in terms of theory (chords, progressions and scales). Some open tunings (such as DADGAD) have the advantage of making almost anything that you play sound good, but within a limited context (some suspended mode, for example). I tend to approach the guitar a bit intellectually, and always am aware of what note I am playing, in what key, and to a certain extent (not always) the relationship of any given note I'm playing to the underlying chord, and that chord's relationship to the progression.

 

An alternate tuning like DADGAD helps me break out of that intellectual approach and my usual playing ruts. I put down my fingers (you'll quickly find some shapes, both scale and chord-wise, that work), but don't really fully understand what I'm playing. I just know it sounds good. It makes me play things I wouldn't ever come up with in standard tuning. But I did long for some more control, so I put on my thinking cap and figured out a few chords and scale notes -- guess what? I started immediately sounding like I always do! I was back to playing my usual chords and the notes I'd play over them. Now the tuning does still offer the advantages of different open strings for certain keys, but part of the power of the tuning (to make your guitar and playing sound quite different) had been compromised.

 

Just my thoughts -- I was thinking about this stuff today, so this is a timely subject for me.

[fatback]

Originally posted by FingerBone Bill I've just cobbled together something I've had difficulty finding on the web. Basic DADGAD chords! The criteria being that they are not too exotic; cover every key AND they are actually PLAYABLE by the average guitarist blessed with only four fingers and one thumb! Oh yes and that the sheets are actually big enough to be read by your average musician, who probably doesn't have the eyesight of a pergrine falcon, at arms length. So with the help of www.jguitar.com I made my own. It covers Major, minor, min7, Maj7 & min7b5 in all keys. (I may add more later but that should be a good start.) Please feel free to download a copy dadgadChords.pdf If you download a copy and you find it helpful give this post a bump so others can find it.

 

 

Thanks a lot I look forward to trying them out

 

Phil

[wigginsplayer]

Fingerbone!

Thanks, man. I just printed the chords out and will practice on them this fine rainy Sunday afternoon!

 

Pete