D-A-D-F-A-E

• OVERVIEW •

A spacious Open Dm variant, which retains Standard’s E1str tone to give a minor 9th open harmony. Great for chord voicings which combine intricate high extensions with robust bass structures – with note-shuffling added by the tuning’s irregular interval sequence (a 4th, min. 3rd, and a maj. 3rd, sandwiched by two 5ths). Hear how the tighter 1str stands out.

Like its major counterpart (D-A-D-F#-A-E: Yvette’s Dadd9), this layout retains many of the Open D family’s strengths – including one-finger power chords across 6-5-4str, dextrous harmonic possibilities on 4-3-2str, and general low-side solidity – while also opening up a variety of new shapes. See how the wide jump at the top recolours your improv…

Pattern: 7>5>3>4>7

Harmony: Dmin(add9) | 1-5-1-b3-5-2

• TUNING TONES •

• SOUNDS •

Used by eclectic Swedish metallers Opeth – particularly on their eighth album, 2005’s Ghost Reveries (e.g. on Ghost Of Perdition, Isolation Years, Baying of the Hounds, and all six of the electric/acoustic/12-string guitar layers on Reverie Harlequin Forest). In the words of frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt, “I love experimenting with tuning…which [on Ghost Reveries] I got from folk players like Bert Jansch, John Renbourn and Nick Drake” (although he also cautions that: “I don’t want to get [too] lost in tuning…we’re comfortable with Standard“).

Also used by Australian rockers Karnivool on a few tracks (e.g. All I Know, Set Fire to the Hive: although they generally prefer B-F#-B-G-B-E) – as well as a sparse scattering of others (e.g. a quick sketch by NathanKGx, and an anonymous improv captured in a Gilmore Guitars workshop). Broader use, however, remains surprisingly rare, despite the tuning lying only a few twists away from Standard, the Open D family, and many others (…before long, my search-query results were getting clogged up by hits for hex colour ID ‘#dadfae’: a very light green).

• Ghost of Perdition @ Red Rocks – Opeth (2017):

“You’d compare yourself [to] old classmates…they’d have flourishing careers: even if I thought their careers sounded boring, at least they had something to survive on. I was bitter and beaten down…I didn’t have much hope for us. All I knew was that I liked the music I’d written.” (Mikael Åkerfeldt)

• NUMBERS •

• See my Tunings Megatable for further such nerdery: more numbers, intervallic relations, comparative methods, etc. And to any genuine vibratory scientists reading: please critique my DIY analysis!

• RELATED •

—Associated tunings: proximities of shape, concept, context, etc…

• Open Dm (this with 1str -2): taking out the high ninth
• Yvette’s Dadd9 (this with 3str +1): the major variant
• Equilibrium: same strings altered, by different intervals

• MORE INFO •

—Further learnings: sources, readings, lessons, other onward links…

• Opeth: Learn more about the evolution and eclectic influences of the three-decades-old group via fan-selected lists of top-10 tracks on Reddit – and also check out interviews with leader Mikael Åkerfeldt in Rolling Stone (on his all-time favourite metal albums) and Guitar World (“Martin Lopez ended up playing me something by [Turkish Arabesk singer] İbrahim Tatlıses. I guess it was Kurdish pop music, but to my ears it sounded evil! It had notes…that you didn’t really find in Western scales, with bends that were inbetween notes. I immediately rewrote the beginning of Bleak…”)
• Folk to metal: Åkerfeldt, who mentions taking inspiration from “Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, and Nick Drake”, is far from the only heavy guitarist to delve deep into these quieter realms: famously, Led Zeppelin took detours into the folk mythology of the British Isles, both real & imagined (e.g. The Battle of Evermore references Lord of the Rings, and Gallows Pole is an updating of the centuries-old melody The Maid Freed from the Gallows: although Page based his version on American 12-stringer Fred Gerlach’s arrangement) – also see a rundown of modern folk-metal by Grimner‘s flautist and bagpipe player Johan Rydberg in Louder Sound: “For a very long time, the folk-metal scene has been dominated by bands [that] focus on Norse, Celtic, Gaelic, and similar themes…Now we have seen new bands rise…bringing their culture and mythology: Myrath (Tunisian power-folk), Wagakki Band (Japanese folk-metal), [and] Tengger Cavalry (Mongolian folk-metal)…”

Header image: Ghost Reveries album cover (2005)

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George Howlett is a London-based musician, writer, and teacher (guitars, sitar, tabla, & santoor). Above all I seek to enthuse fellow sonic searchers, interconnecting fresh vibrations with the voices, cultures, and passions behind them. See Home & Writings, and hit me up for Online Lessons!

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