DADGAD Tuning: A Player's Guide

DADGAD has no 3rd in it anywhere. Every chord you play decides major or minor with one note, and everything else rings. This guide is about using that.

It covers the neck and the sus4 bar, a table of which keys suit the open strings and why, and a set of chords in D that keeps the drones ringing. There are 18 playable shapes, 12 full-neck chord maps and 8 scale maps in intervals, plus three fingerstyle phrases in tab.

It also says what DADGAD isn't good at. It isn't a slide tuning, and in keys that fight the open strings you lose the reason to be in it. If you need a lot of keys, standard tuning is the right tool.

16-page printable PDF, US Letter.