D-A-D-D-A-D
• OVERVIEW •
‘Double-dad’ tuning is handily symmetrical, mirroring its ‘D-A-D’ pattern across the guitar’s centre line to form a stacked D power chord (like a ‘double-decker D sandwich, each filled with A’). Only one string differs from the famous DADGAD – 3str is lowered by a fourth, going super-slack to add psychedelic phasing effects. Variants have long been used on steel guitars and other lap slide instruments.
Theorist Bill Sethares, who titles it ‘4 and 20′ tuning after Stephen Stills’ song of the same name, notes how it “sounds a chord that is harmonically ambiguous: neither major nor minor…since [it] has multiple Ds and As, there tend to be numerous variants possible on any given chord form”. (Also: does it inherently count as a ‘dad joke’?)
Pattern: 7>5>0>7>5
Harmony: D5 | 1-5-1-1-5-1
• TUNING TONES •
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• SOUNDS •
Used on many tracks – e.g. London Conversation (John Martyn), Treat Your Mama (John Butler), Fingerdance (Billy McLaughlin), Your Love Is Enough (Jon Foreman), and the Brazilian folk-fusions of Miragem do Porto (Lenine & Marcos Suzano). (Also, I’ve had many happy hours over the years listening to my friend Sergey Sitwell explore variants on his expansive collection of guitar-like instruments…recordings to follow sometime soon I hope!)
Also check out the aforementioned 4 Plus 20 – although officially released as a Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young track, it’s unique as the only album song the quartet ever released which features only one member. In Stills’ description, “it’s about an 84-year-old poverty-stricken man who started and finished with nothing” (the ‘420’ title comes from a ‘Gettysburg-style’ 84, rather than whatever else these digits may suggest…).
- London Conversation – John Martyn (1968):
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• NUMBERS •
| 6str | 5str | 4str | 3str | 2str | 1str | |
| Note | D | A | D | D | A | D |
| Alteration | -2 | 0 | 0 | -5 | -2 | -2 |
| Tension (%) | -21 | 0 | 0 | -44 | -21 | -21 |
| Freq. (Hz) | 73 | 110 | 147 | 147 | 220 | 294 |
| Pattern (>) | 7 | 5 | 0 | 7 | 5 | – |
| Semitones | 0 | 7 | 12 | 12 | 19 | 24 |
| Intervals | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 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…
- Zen Drone: two tones for spontaneous creation
- Open Dsus (this with 3str +5): global modalism
- Teardrop: same low-end with a tighter high half
• MORE INFO •
—Further learnings: sources, readings, lessons, other onward links…
- Double-dad detail: see Sam Swank‘s demo vid, and Bill Sethares‘ tuning sampler (p.78) – as well as Joao Tiago Duarte Martins’ thesis citing its use in Brazil (Songs Of The People, p.40: “the underlying groove is ijexá, with the guitar doubling the eighth notes…”)
- Stephen Stills’ songwriting: see Bruce Palmer tuning (used by Stills to anchor Crosby & Nash’s soaring vocal harmonies on the rhapsodic, romantic Suite: Judy Blue Eyes) – and also a pleasing collection of ‘420‘ tidbits on SongFacts (“the man in this song is 84 years old, but Stills sings that he was born ‘4 & 20’ years ago. Logically, this would mean that he’s 24 years old, but there is a bit of poetic license here…the phrase [was] popularized in the children’s song Sing a Song of Sixpence, where ‘four and twenty’ blackbirds are baked in a pie…Another close cousin is ‘four score and seven years ago’, the first line of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address…”)
Header image: John Martyn smokes away on stage
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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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