DADGAD Dictionary

What I've always liked about DADGAD (other than a more easily playable F chord) is the use of open strings against fretted notes to get 'chimey' chords, without hand contortions. 

 Here are a few of my favorite go-to voicings:

 

 

Harmonic Cycling in DADGAD

 

 

The cycle consists of shifting from a first inversion major chord to a first inversion minor, then moving the pattern up in minor thirds (3 frets), then descending in major seconds (2 frets).

 

You can listen to online at Musecore.

The harmony is complex but the fingering is extremely easy, and are essentially barre chords where only one finger changes position. 

 

Transpositions very often result in strange enharmonic spellings, and in this case, wraps around on an enharmonic spelling on G# and Ab. 

The bass can follow the guitar, or play a combination of roots and inversions. It functions more as a melody. Other instruments can also weave in similar counterpoints by choosing any chord tone.

Note: Some of the chord spellings are incorrect. This is a bug in the Finale software that switches Cb to B and E# to F.