Although DADGAD guitar tuning is most closely associated with the droning, bagpipe-like sounds of Celtic music, Laurence Juber has taken it to a whole new level with his use of beautiful cascading notes and complex harmonies. On this richly detailed lesson, Laurence gives you a complete understanding of how DADGAD works and how, by using it, you can gain a deeper knowledge of the fingerboard and its vast possibilities. You'll discover the distinctive adjacent scale tones and open strings that make it such a joy to play in this tuning, and will learn to go beyond the basic key of D with tunes in F, C and E minor.
Laurence shows you how he uses this tuning in some of his newest and most affecting compositions. His lyrical ballad Still Warm, with its lush harmonies and evocative melody line, gives you a wonderful piece to start your DADGAD explorations. You'll then move on to Silhouette in A minor, revealing the rich harmonies that are not easily found in standard tuning.
In what is perhaps the most fascinating segment of this lesson, Laurence takes the classic Irish ballad Danny Boy and improvises arrangements in D, F and C, discovering the different textures and sonorities that can be found in each key. His brilliance as an arranger for guitar becomes evident as you follow the process of his musically creative mind. Then it's on to Fountain Jumping, a ragtime-like piece in F with a bluesy twist, filled with hammers and pulls that make it a fast and exciting instrumental.
This challenging and fascinating video lesson will certainly open up new and exciting opportunities for your guitar playing, and will allow you to look at the guitar in a whole new way. As Laurence himself puts it, learning DADGAD "gives us a different angle on the guitar -- a different standard".
