D-A-D-F^#-B-E

• OVERVIEW •

A blend of ‘Open D + Standard‘ (or ‘Drop D + Lute‘), used by Swedish singer-songwriter José González among others. The lowest four strings provide a solid, stable Dmaj triad (1-5-1-3), while the high-end pair add ambiguity and intrigue (maj. 6th & 2nd) – forming a widened D6/9.

 

Great for ‘vertical’ voicings and progressions (i.e. moving shapes ‘up-and-down’ the neck, rather than across the strings). Relatively easy to adjust to, lying only two twists from EADGBE: and the 6str D-drop is uber-familiar, while the semitone-lowered 3str essentially just moves EADGBE’s ‘odd-one-out’ interval back a string (5>5>5>4>5 vs. 7>5>4>5>5).

Pattern: 7>5>4>5>5

Harmony: D6/9 | 1-5-1-3-6-2

• TUNING TONES •

• SOUNDS •

Born in Sweden to parents who had been forced to flee there due to a right-wing military coup in their native Argentina (“they were after anyone that was slightly leftist…a lot of my father’s friends got tortured or killed”), José González wasn’t always a softly-spoken indie folkster. As a teenager he played bass in a hardcore punk band alongside classical guitar lessons, and, a decade or so later, he wound up working on a Biochemistry PhD at the University of Gothenburg, focused on DNA replication in viruses (also see Ichika Nito, another virological retuner).

 

His 2003 debut album Veneer was recorded in spare time away from the lab. Though well-received, it took a sudden flood of publicity from a 2005 Sony advert to bring him to international attention: his gentle cover of Heartbeats (originally by fellow Swedes The Knife) was selected to soundtrack the hypnotic hill-descent of 250,000 bouncing balls down the streets of San Francisco, in an ultra-rare case of a likeable TV commercial featuring indie folk (n.b. also see Pink Moon). I don’t know or care what they were selling, but am glad José (and the tuning) got some fame out of it:

 

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• Heartbeats (‘bouncy balls’ ad) – José González (2005):

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“One night of magic rush,

The start a simple touch,

One night to push and scream,

And then relief…”

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Perhaps surprisingly for a lab scientist, González prefers a low-tech approach when it comes to music, often recording at home on inexpensive kit and even duct-taping his soundhole to dampen treble clarity. Nevertheless, he remains fascinated with the many interfaces between science and nature (“I know people…they think if you peer into your brain to see which part of your brain fires when you’re in love, it will take away from the feeling, but I don’t believe that. It’s like knowing what kind of spices are in your food…”).

 

The layout for Heartbeats (cp.1) also turns up on another of José’s most famous songs – Crosses (cp.2) – although, for a tuning widely associated with his name, he doesn’t actually use it too much beyond this in its precise form. Others have also tried it – albeit not as many as I might expect given its tempting two-twist simplicity: e.g. Jigsaw Falling Into Place (Thom Yorke’s part), Chinese Translation (M Ward), Out Getting Ribs (Zoo Kid), Before Long (Sam Parsons), and Pink India (Stephen Malkmus: who also frequented José’s Teardrop tuning on occasion).

 

Also turns up as a ‘Rondeña’ tuning in flamenco (e.g. Paco Peña’s Granada en Flor and Paco de Lucia’s El Vito & Cueva del Gato), and classical guitar too – mostly in modern arrangements of old lute scores (e.g. J.S. Bach’s Violin Partita in Dm), but sometimes in standalone works (e.g. the dramatic, rhapsodic Toccata in Blue for Guitar by visionary composer Carlo Domeniconi: who has also written in Open C#m tuning, and for the saz, as well as scoring a nylon-string Hommage à Jimi Hendrix).

 

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• Toccata in Blue – Carlo Domeniconi (1997):

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“The time of the self-deprecating ‘classical’ guitar is over. It is time to see the guitar as it really is: a strong, sonorous instrument, with a richness of colour that knows no equal…” (Carlo Domeniconi)

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• NUMBERS •

	6str	5str	4str	3str	2str	1str
Note	D	A	D	Gb	B	E
Alteration	-2	0	0	-1	0	0
Tension (%)	-21	0	0	-11	0	0
Freq. (Hz)	73	110	147	185	247	330
Pattern (>)	7	5	4	5	5	–
Semitones	0	7	12	16	21	26
Intervals	1	5	1	3	6	2

• 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…

• Lute (‘Vihuela’) (this with 6str +2): a non-dropped variant
• Teardrop (this with 3str +4): another layout used by José
• Wind of Change: pushes ‘D-A-D-F#’ to the opposite side

• MORE INFO •

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

• José González: hear him discuss the great outdoors with National Geographic, music tech (or the absence thereof) with The Local – and his familial roots with The Age (“He gets his melancholy from his birthplace, Sweden. He gets his rhythms from his Argentinian family. And he gets his inspiration from old Kylie Minogue videos…”)
• Ad-musical oddities: I hate advertising (see: ‘subvertising‘), but at least it occasionally brings artists like José and Nick Drake to wider public attention (and you can always shut your eyes I guess) – so, for a few other notable instances, check out: Bing Crosby & Al Jolson (Philco Electronics, 1947: oddly innocent), The Rolling Stones (Rice Krispies, 1964: a manic jingle), Miles Davis (Honda Scooters, 1984: brief and bizarre), Nickleback (DFS, 2008: banned in the UK for using special effects to make the sofas look larger), Iggy Pop (AXA Insurance, 2009: unhinged, and soon replaced by an animated dog), Jon Bon Joni (DIRECTV, 2016: dead on the inside, cosmetically unsettling on the outside – just an absolute carcrash of consumer capitalist nightmares), and The Beatles (Nike shoes, 1987: “…the remaining Beatles [sued] both the advertising firm and Nike. The case was dismissed because Yoko Ono had actually signed off on the transaction…”)
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  (Although to be fair, John Lydon’s Country Life butter ads (2008: admirably shameless) may well have had a profound influence on my life and musical path: they reportedly led to an 85% increase in sales, likely helping a 17-year-old me get more shifts at the local Dairy Crest food-packing factory – I hated it, but used the much-needed cash to go to India and study sitar soon after. Move over McLaughlin: Lydon is my true Hindustani hero…)

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Header image: some of Heartbeats’ 250,000 bouncing balls