DAAEAE - Part 1
A Unique Tuning

DAAEAE is an unusual tuning, firstly because of the doubled A strings in the bass. For Celtic guitarists, these unison strings help to create the drone of the bagpipes which are pitched somewhere between A and Bb. The top open 3 strings provide 1sts and 5ths only and so hammers and pull-offs to work nicely against the drone. Finally, the D on the bass is the 4th which completes the picture.

However, the tuning offers some other surprises. Open tunings such as DADGAD make it impossible to play the low D string in a chord alongside adjacent the 2nd/3rd and 4ths. Having the two unison A strings makes for some very interesting chord ideas, especially when plucking through the notes to form a melody. The idea is to use one of the open A strings, and to fret notes on the next one to create small intervals in the bass.

The tuning offers great new ideas for DADGAD, CGCGCD players, and will be a topic of future articles and audio samples soon. In the meantime, here are some chords and a few scales to help open the tuning up. Enjoy !