Who invented the DADGAD guitar tuning?
Most guitarists tend to get bored playing the same type of riff over and over again. For all of the shredding that can be done on a standard-tuned six-string, most people want to start exploring new options that no one had ever heard before, often involving tuning the guitar differently to get a distinct sound. That leads to alternate tunings, and none is more mystical than DADGAD.
At first, though, open tunings were used to reproduce a standard chord voicing without putting one’s hand on the neck of the guitar. Opening up a new world for blues players, the predominant use of open tunings helped usher in different forms of playing slide guitar, making different chords easily ring out in perfect tune.
While the idea of the open tuning may have been functional at the time, it also is easy to spark creativity in the musician. Since most standard chord voicings are obsolete on an alternated-tuned guitar, musicians would find themselves learning a completely different musical vocabulary, playing different voicings of traditional chords that transform a song from an ordinary pop tune to something with a lot more musical air in it.
While blues guitarists may have helped kickstart the idea of open tuning, Davy Graham is responsible for introducing DADGAD tuning to the world. Unlike the smooth sounds of open D, the titular tuning (spelt relating to the notes on every string from low to high) is tuned to a suspended chord. So while the open strings ringing does sound attractive at the moment, it doesn’t feel truly resolved until the player puts their magic into it.
Composing the track ‘Anji’, Graham showcased the capabilities of what DADGAD tuning had to offer, twisting his melody into different directions that would have never been possible on a traditional standard-tuned arrangement. Even though the song would go on to be a modest hit when it was released in 1961, one of the few listeners tuning in was Paul Simon of Simon and Garfunkel.
Eventually releasing a cover of the song on Sounds of Silence, the rest of the guitar community tried their hand at writing their compositions in open tunings. Although Graham may have started it, and Simon picked up where he left off, Joni Mitchell helped usher in the tuning into a mainstream context.
Throughout most of her tunes, Mitchell favoured open tunings, using DADGAD on various hits through the 1970s. Being as much acoustic as they were electric, Led Zeppelin also dipped their toes into DADGAD on their hit ‘Kashmir’. Rather than favour open chords, though, Jimmy Page expanded the tuning palette even further, playing different discordant notes that made one guitar sound like an entire orchestra playing in unison.
The legacy of DADGAD continues to permeate the rock world for decades, with Pearl Jam later using the tuning for the song ‘Given to Fly’. Although most guitarists may be comfortable working with the confines of standard tuning, Davy Graham remains one of the many guitarists who dared to ask what wonders lay ahead if the guitars were tuned slightly differently.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter
All the latest stories about Led Zeppelin from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.