The Story of Rick and DADGAD Guitar

An "Alternate" Approach to Music

That "Somewhere in between"

Let's me be clear: Most acoustic singer-songwriters will play guitar in the same tuning for most all of their songwriting and performing. The "Standard Tuning" for guitars since the 16th century has been EADGBE. Most classical music written for guitar is written in this tuning and it sounds wonderful when played well.

That said, in much more recent years  other "alternate tunings" for the guitar have been invented or developed by well known artists, such as Stephen Stills, Joni Mitchell, among others.

For me, on a day in 1993, a friend of mine called me over to his house to listen to a new CD by an artist by the name of David Wilcox, "How Did You Find Me Here?" I fell in love with the music and immediately set to "deconstructing" it (as there was no sheet music available). And although I knew I had the chord structures of the songs correct, my arrangements in standard tuning didn't come close to the sound the way David played it. I realized that in order to learn this music , I would have to change the way I approached each song and adapt the tuning of the instrument to the music, rather than the other way around. After struggling with multiple alternate tunings (e.g. Open-D, Open-G and Open-C), I hit "pay dirt" with DADGAD, an alternate tuning that is neither major or minor, but somewhere in between.

And now, more than 25 years later, I still find new sounds, new tunes and new songs in DADGAD. I now use it as a "jumping off point" for even greater musical adventures, creating tunings that fit the song, rather than forcing the song into a set tuning. 

I hope you will join me as we, together, follow the Muse where she will lead us!

Tracks from the Past!

Here's some of Rick's Music! Listen in!

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Latest News

Rick has regularly maintained a blog as he explores his experience as an emerging artist. See what he has to say!