Travis Style

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Is this one of the best or worst method or repertoire books for learning to play acoustic fingerstyle blues guitar?

You can learn to play music using a variety of resources including teachers, online resources, and books.

Understanding DADGAD for Fingerstyle Guitar is a method book for… learning to play fingerstyle guitar using the wonderous alternate tuning known as DADGAD tuning.  This tuning is often associated with Celtic fingerstyle (Pierre Bensusan and Tony McManus), the British folk revival of the 1960s (Davy Graham), and modern fingerstyle (Andy McKee), but it truly excels in any genre.  

So, if you have some fingerstyle or classical guitar experience and you have an interest in beginning to utilize DADGAD tuning, this book will provide a comprehensive introduction.  Be aware, it is appropriate for intermediate to advanced fingerstyle guitarists.  Do not try to work through this book if you are just starting out with acoustic fingerstyle guitar – you really need to have the basics down before starting in this book.

Understanding DADGAD covers a lot of ground with regards to this alternate tuning, starting out by showing you simple chords, the basics of fretboard navigation, a few easier arrangements, and some accessible ideas for improvisation.  The book provides useful insights into how to leverage your knowledge of standard tuning to facilitate your learning of DADGAD – your 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th strings are tuned the same as in standard tuning, while your 1^st, 2^nd, and 6^th strings are tuned exactly one whole step down.  The book also does a great job introducing you to many of DADGAD’s unique characteristics – the tuning is especially well-suited to the harp-like cross-string technique, the use of drones, and the use of octaves paired with hammer-ons, pull-offs, and slides.

Where the book falls a little flat is that it doesn’t effectively show you how to arrange a tune in DADGAD tuning.  Upon completion of the book, you may have a few cool DADGAD tunes that you can play, but you may not know how to apply your newly acquired familiarity with the tuning to other music.  Personally, I am always arranging tunes for fingerstyle guitar, and while some tunes work great in standard tuning or drop-D, others seem to shine in DADGAD.  I recently arranged the Guns ‘N Roses hit, “Sweet Child of Mine,” to beef up my set-list for bars and breweries, and I started out arranging the tune in standard tuning.  It wasn’t sitting right in the original key, so I transposed it a couple times, but still didn’t like the results.  Finally, I arranged it in DADGAD and voila, the result was lush, musically satisfying, and playable/performable.  Here’s a sample of that arrangement.

My recommendation is that all fingerstyle players learn to arrange tunes in standard tuning, drop-D, and DADGAD.  While Understanding DADGAD doesn’t cover this topic, it does give you lots of tools (intervals, cross-string technique, etc.) to use in any future DADGAD arranging.  In my eBook, Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar, I show you how to arrange Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star in multiple keys in standard and alternate tunings (including DADGAD).  You can also check out my video/podcast series: Arranging Melodies for Fingerstyle Guitar, in which I show you how to arrange examples from the Essential Elements Guitar Method.  I’ll put a link to these videos in the corner and in the show description.

A nice supplement to Understanding DADGAD would be another book from our author: A DADGAD Christmas, again, also by Doug Young.  This other book contains great DADGAD arrangements of Christmas carols that you can both play and analyze to gain arranging insights.

Understanding DADGAD provides both treble clef and tablature for each arrangement.  Unfortunately, no fingerings are provided in the music.  For each example, I notated my own fingering in the music, after which I was able to play much more smoothly, accurately, and confidently.  The skill of choosing sensible fingering is important, and you will need to look elsewhere to further develop this skill.

Recordings are available online through Mel Bay’s website.  These will be very helpful to many readers.

© 2008 by Mel Bay

My own books:

Arranging for Fingerstyle Guitar: go to http://joemcmurray.com/checkout/ to purchase a pdf of my eBook.  Learning to arrange melodies will also help your fingerstyle songwriting and your understanding of the inner workings of fingerstyle guitar.

Fingerstyle Blues Guitar: An In-Depth Study of the 12-Bar Blues in E Major – Books 1 and 2 are available in paperback or as an eBook through Amazon [https://a.co/d/g7Udsso (Book 1) and https://a.co/d/aDbh4H0 (Book 2)].  The first priority of these books is to quickly get you playing a solo instrumental 12-bar blues, and then to build on it until you can freely improvise or “jam.” You should be up and running by the end of the third chapter, and each following chapter will add icing on the cake.  There is an focus on using a monotonic bass to maximize melodic freedom, and there is an emphasis on creating lyrical melodies using actual lyrics.

My upcoming book, Arranging for Fingerstyle Ukulele, will be published by Mel Bay in 2026.

My music is available on all streaming platforms at https://open.spotify.com/artist/5dcokTG6C598OhTslHH5uo?si=hrQb7FViSZewDRSgECw9Ew:

Pins on the Map: my third fingerstyle guitar album was released on January 19, 2024. Watch the first single, “Open Road,” on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/uPBh8sZQsT4?si=EM_wAwnHFqU1VC9C.

Riding the Wave and Acoustic Oasis: my first two fingerstyle guitar albums.