D-A-D-F#-A-E
• OVERVIEW •
A melodious Open D variant, which retains Standard’s high E1str tone to give a spacious Dadd9. Pleasingly, the 6-2str intervals are arranged in descending order of width, narrowing in neat sequence as you go towards the treble (7>5>4>3: 5th > 4th > maj. 3rd > min. 3rd) – until you encounter the unexpectedly wide 5th jump at the end (2-1str).
This layout retains many of the Open D family’s strengths – including one-finger power chords across 6-5-4str, dextrous major and minor possibilities on 4-3-2str, and general low-side solidity – while also opening up a variety of new 9th shapes and suspended voicings. See how the extra width reshapes your chords and melodies…
Pattern: 7>5>4>3>7
Harmony: Dadd9 | 1-5-1-3-5-2
• TUNING TONES •
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• SOUNDS •
Used superbly by Californian guitarist Yvette Young. As explained in a Guitar World interview, “I used to use way more tunings, but for the sake of my sanity…I’ve been using less. I actually don’t memorize chord shapes at all. When I write a riff, I hum it and hear the harmonies, then teach it to myself really slowly…Certain tunings assist with that: they can make certain interval stretches a little easier…Melody is always the primary focus, so the unusual tunings assist me in filling out those melodies. I use a lot of open strings, as well as playing bass patterns at the same time…I’m used to playing like a bedroom guitarist! When I didn’t have a band…open tunings…filled out my sound a lot.”
Listen to Young use it in Covet, her fusion trio – e.g. on tracks such as Nautilus, Shibuya (cp.2), and lots of the Technicolor album. Also explored by fellow rhythmic mathematicians This Town Needs Guns (Panda, Empty Palms, Bliss Quest, There’s No ‘I’ In Team, & Destroy the Tabernacle!: almost always cp.3), as well as Ghosts and Vodka (Andrea Loves Horses), The Seafloor Cinema (Don’t Go Hollow), and Their/They’re/There (572 Cuthbert Blvd, cp.6) – plus a chord-focused demo video by Marco Cirillo. The same layout is also used down a tone (C-G-C-E-G-D) by Periphery (Scarlet: n.b. their bassist, Adam ‘Nolly’ Getgood, was a few years above me in school – and seeing his ‘Tangent Eye’ trio play at bandnight was a main spark for my 13-year-old self to ask for a guitar…so if you’re getting any joy from this website, thank Nolly too!)
- Open tunings demo – Yvette Young (2020):
“I grew up playing classical violin and piano, but I always associated that world with competitiveness, pressure and stress. [They] were things I did for other people – my parents kinda forced it on me – so the guitar felt very different. It’s a thing that no one else can touch, this amazingly personal outlet…I write what I want to write, and play what I want to play. There was something really liberating about picking up a new instrument, not learning the rules and just playing for fun. It’s been so good to me.” (Yvette Young)
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• NUMBERS •
| 6str | 5str | 4str | 3str | 2str | 1str | |
| Note | D | A | D | Gb | A | E |
| Alteration | -2 | 0 | 0 | -1 | -2 | 0 |
| Tension (%) | -21 | 0 | 0 | -11 | -21 | 0 |
| Freq. (Hz) | 73 | 110 | 147 | 185 | 220 | 330 |
| Pattern (>) | 7 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 7 | – |
| Semitones | 0 | 7 | 12 | 16 | 19 | 26 |
| Intervals | 1 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 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…
- Ghost Reveries (this with 3str -1): the minor variant
- Open D (this with 1str -2): no ninth, just the triad
- Ethereal: a different approach to D extensions
• MORE INFO •
—Further learnings: sources, readings, lessons, other onward links…
- Global math-rock: while the term ‘math-rock’ can justifiably be criticised as vague and somewhat reductive, it still serves a useful descriptor for a broad spectrum of interlinked musical phenomena – find out more via my tuning page for Math Rock F (FACGCE: almost the same as Yvette’s alternate FACGAE), as well as a discussion of the modern Chinese scene via Fecking Bahamas (“math-rock bands have jumped into Chinese buffs’ ears…nowadays we can hear harder riffs, more aggressive beats, and even djent cadenza in some compositions”)
- Yvette Young: as well as the links above, you can learn more about the virtuoso axewoman’s life and innovations in the aforementioned Guitar World interview (“I didn’t take guitar seriously until I was in hospital…It made me feel like I had a voice, and gave me confidence – that’s what really pulled me out of that darkness”) – as well as another with MusicRadar (“Another one I like is FACGAE…probably my favourite acoustic tuning. I tend to write a lot of Lydian-sounding stuff in that one”), and an intriguing culturally-focused conversation with Asian American Pacific Islander Musicians (“I started thinking about how it is important to have representation – and my identity does relate to how I can inspire other people to pick up guitar. Oh, and the worst thing I dealt with was probably being fetishized…people thinking I’m a certain way sexually, or feeling exoticized, being called ‘oriental’…being viewed as a possession, or a cool new thing to try… or even a category of people someone likes to date instead of an individual…Even in [online] comments, people always like to say things such as, ‘Somewhere across the world there’s an Asian that’s better than you at something’. No, it’s because I practiced, and put in hours of work!”)
Header image: Yvette Young and her sparkling Ibanez
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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!
“An intrepid guitar researcher…”
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