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Intro

By far the most widely used guitar tuning is 'Standard' tuning (EADGBE) but many guitarists over the years have been
intrigued by the different sounds the guitar has to offer when the open strings are tuned differently. These 'Alternate'
tunings can inspire creativity because of the unique chord voicings they offer and many artists have utilised these
sounds over the years and produced a lot of great music.

The tuning I play and am most passionate about is DADGAD tuning and this site will focus mainly on resources for
this tuning. I hope you find some of the material useful.


How to tune from
Standard tuning

6th - E down to D (1 tone)
5th - no change
4th - no change
3rd - no change
2nd - B down to A (1 tone)
1st - E down to D (1 tone)

 


About this tuning:

This is a D suspended fourth tuning (Dsus4).
ie. when all the strings are played open, the sound is of a suspended fourth chord (Dsus4).

Some of you may be saying, whats a suspended fourth chord?

Well, all chords have a configuration, a formula you might say! The formula for a suspended fourth chord is the 1st, 4th and 5th notes of a major scale. If we look at the scale of D major these notes are D, G, A (more on chord formulas later).

It is very commonly referred to as a Modal tuning although to be quite honest I'm not entirely sure why or where this phrase originated.

 
I have read recently on the net that DADGAD is being referred to as the new 'standard tuning'. A pretty ambitious statement considering the number of guitarists in the world.... I wouldn't go that far myself, but It must be recognised that DADGADs popularity is ever growing and whether you are learning guitar for the first time or merely trying out something new, it's a good idea to get the foundations right.

 


Fretboard

The first thing you really need to get to grips with is the fretboard. So learn and memorize the notes on each string along the neck. This is a lot easier to do on DADGAD because you only have 3 strings to learn - D, G and A, as the other strings are repeated.

NB. The diagram below shows the strings, Low D (thickest) on the bottom and High D (thinnest) on the top.

Click on the image below for a PDF version you can print.
Don't have Adobe Acrobat reader Click here

  
Fret notes for DADGAD
More to follow...  

 
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