DADGAD Tuning Two Celtic pieces

In this lesson I’m going to take a look at a couple of traditional pieces in DADGAD tuning – a tuning that for many is the default when it comes to playing this repertoire. The tuning found its origins in the 1960s via the travels of legendary British folk picker Davey Graham who used it to emulate the sounds of the Middle Eastern instruments he was encountering. Soon it was being used by everyone from Jimmy Page to Bert Jansch and was quickly adopted by the acoustic community as an ideal tuning for replicating traditional Irish and Scottish repertoire on guitar.

There are several reasons why the tuning works so well – first, there is a symmetry to it as you can use the open fourth (D), third (G) and fifth (A) strings to sound