D-A-D-F-A-D

• OVERVIEW •

Matches a Standard-tuned Emin shape (‘0-2-2-0-0-0’) in terms of interval structure – with everything twisted a whole tone lower. Thus forms a ‘cross-note‘ layout, as (unlike in Open Dmaj) you can easily ‘cross over’ to major voicings with just one finger (e.g. ‘0-0-0-1-0-0’). Associated with haunting Delta bluesman Skip James (and sometimes referred to as ‘Bentonia’ tuning, after his Mississippi hometown).

 

In many ways, Dm is a very logical place to start your open-tuned explorations: after all, the Em shape it mirrors is almost always one of the very first chords we learn. And, as with the rest of the Open D family, the layout offers powerful vertical possibilities, with parallel octaves on 6+4+1str and 5+2str – as well as comfortable access to a useful range of chords, harmonies, and extensions.

 

But, unlike its siblings (Open D & DADGAD), it also retains much of Standard’s melodic familiarity by keeping 3-2-1str in the same relative configuration (semitone jumps: 4>5) – making it much easier to repurpose the treble-side vocab you already know. Similarly fantastic for fingerpicking sequences which make liberal use of droning open string resonance – and also for slow, minor-locked acoustic slide playing.

Pattern: 7>5>3>4>5

Harmony: Dmin | 1-5-1-b3-5-1

• TUNING TONES •

• SOUNDS •

Open Dm will forever remain closely associated with Nehemiah Curtis ‘Skip’ James (1902-1969), a foundational Delta bluesman known for his intricate minor-key fingerpicking techniques. The son of a bootlegger-turned-preacher, James spent years labouring for low pay around Mississippi, drawing sonic solace from his guitar strings amidst hard work building roads and levees across the Southern state – as well as following his father’s excursions into both the church and the underworld.

 

The Dm-tuned Illinois Blues, one of his earliest compositions, describes his experiences of this era: “I been to Chicago and I been to Detroit…I gin my little cotton, and sell my seed…the people will treat you just so-so…”. While Skip was not the first to use the DADFAD layout, he does seem to be the originator of the ‘cross-note‘ term – offering the somewhat unclear explanation that, in his tuning, “the major crosses the minor” (I guess that the ‘0-0-0-1-0-0′ major shape ‘crosses the straight line’).

 

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• Illinois Blues – Skip James (1931):

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“A career bootlegger, pimp, gambler, gunslinger, and sometime minister of the church, the stricken James was also the subject of a manhunt. Not [as] a target of federal officials or revenue agents – as he initially feared (his nickname ‘Skippy’ had grown out of his frequent need to skip town when in trouble) – but of a trio of young white, middle-class enthusiasts from California, for whom Skip James was nothing but a mysterious name on a rare, dusty old 78 record, a phantom of the blues…” (from Ian Tasker’s I’m So Glad)

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Other Skip classics set to the same tuning shape (including nearby transpositions) include Devil Got My Woman, Cherry Ball Blues, and Crow Jane. These tunes, though mostly recorded in the 1930s, only rose to wider prominence several decades later – ‘rediscovered’ by artists of the Transatlantic blues booms of the 1950s and 60s – some of whom coaxed the old master out of an extended musical retirement to tour with them in the 1960s. See him in action below at the 1967 American Folk & Blues Festival (tuned a semitone low…perhaps to match the ageing of his voice: like Led Zeppelin dropping songs down a tone for their 2008 revival gig). In Skip’s description, “I wanted it different all the way: I always had that intensity – to go contrary to the rest.“

 

His style also left an indelible stamp on the broader Mississippi blues scene. Countless such artists tuned to Dm transpositions – including Bukka White (Aberdeen Mississippi Blues), Mississippi Fred McDowell (Jim, Steam Killed Lula), Cornelius Bright (My Baby’s Gone), Blind Teddy Darby (Loping Blues), Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup (Mean Old Frisco, Coal Black Mare), Henry Townsend (She’s Got A Mean Disposition), J.T. ‘Funny Paper’ Smith (Whiskeyhead Blues), and Robert Johnson – who based his famous Hell Hound on My Trail on Skip’s Devil Got My Woman. (n.b. See more of these early Delta examples via Weenie Campbell’s Adventures in Cross-Note.)

 

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• Hard Times Killing Floor Blues – Skip James (1967):

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“Skip James, who modestly liked to call himself ‘one of the best men who ever walked’, didn’t think much of Cream’s version of I’m So Glad, lambasting it on his death-bed: ‘They got it ass-backwards…They don’t have the harmony, the rhythm. I doubled up on it. It’s too good a song to mess up like that. Nobody will ever play it like me…'” (Ian Tasker)

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While nowhere near as popular as DADGAD or Open Dmaj, the tuning’s close proximity to these two A-listers (only one twist away) has ensured regular use across various genres over the years. Similarly, almost every guitarist from the past couple of generations has taken influence from the Delta innovators listed above, leading to plenty of direct Dm curiosity too – notable fans of old blues to have used the Dm layout include John Fahey (Red Pony), Martin Simpson (Bonny at Morn), Dire Straits (Tunnel of Love), Peter Finger (For Ladies I Couldn’t Get, Wishbone Ash -1), and Joni Mitchell (Day After Day, Cara’s Castle, Harlem in Havana, The Pirate of Penance (…apparently all alliterative).

 

Other users include The Eagles (Bitter Creek), Stone Temple Pilots (Lounge Fly), and Opeth (Baying of the Hounds) – while Mark McGourley’s Simple Guitar Accompaniment for Native American Flute recommends the tuning as ideal for the task. Also see Simon Smith’s Black Metal Dm Demo, GeminiGuitar’s Chords of Darkness: DADFAD Phrygian Dominant (“perfect for those who want to create dark and haunting sounds”), plus my writeups for Open Em (this +2) and Albert Collins (this +3). And, never forget the eternal wisdom of Spinal Tap‘s Nigel Tufnel (to whom this entire project is dedicated) when it comes to D minor’s unique powers…

 

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• Dm Suite: Lick My Love Pump – Nigel Tufnel (1984):

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“It’s part of a musical trilogy in D minor: which I always find is really the saddest of all keys – I don’t know why, but it makes people weep instantly…This piece is called ‘Lick My Love Pump‘.” (Nigel Tufnel)

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• NUMBERS •

	6str	5str	4str	3str	2str	1str
Note	D	A	D	F	A	D
Alteration	-2	0	0	-2	-2	-2
Tension (%)	-21	0	0	-21	-21	-21
Freq. (Hz)	73	110	147	175	220	294
Pattern (>)	7	5	3	4	5	–
Semitones	0	7	12	15	19	24
Intervals	1	5	1	b3	5	1

• 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 Em (this +2): the tigher, ‘electric’ transposition
• Albert Collins (this +3): his distinctive Fm arrangement
• Open Dsus (this with 3str +2): the renowned ‘DADGAD’

• MORE INFO •

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

• Skip James: listen to a brief 1964 interview with the man himself, conducted just a couple of months after his ‘rediscovery’ – and hear the insights of his biographer Stephen Calt in a WFMU interview (“James seemed neither surprised by nor grateful for the [young] visitors and, after some small talk…observed, ‘You must be pretty stupid. Took you a long time to get here’. The following month [he] appeared at the Newport Folk Festival, thrust before an audience as uncomprehending of his life as he was unimpressed by theirs”) – plus Ian Tasker’s above-linked article in Here Comes the Song (“Cream’s bassist Jack Bruce…recalled a time in the 1970s when he was playing in Philadelphia: ‘I went into the dressing room, and there was this little old lady…It was Ms. Skip James…She said her family made more money from the version [of I’m So Glad] Cream did than in her late husband’s whole life as a musician. The money enabled him to have decent medical care at the end of his life’.”)
• Bentonian sounds: hear the sounds of other ‘Bentonia school’ guitarists, such as Jack Owens and Jimmy ‘Duck’ Holmes (“the proprietor of one of the oldest juke joints in Mississippi, the Blue Front”): and read more about the town’s history a Smithsonian feature (“Holmes’ parents opened the Blue Front in 1948 to serve hot meals to townspeople who labored at the cotton gin or on the surrounding farms. By night, there were moonshine parties and impromptu performances by local musicians, who played a distinctive style of blues unique to the Blue Front and other juke joints in the hills between the Big Black and Yazoo rivers…”)

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Header image: Skip James plays to Mississippi John Hurt