D-trad guitar

Traditional German dance music arranged for flatpicking guitar in DADGAD tuning

Book + accompanying CD, 52 pages, sheet music and tablature (only available in German)

The guitar’s role in folk music has evolved over the years from being purely a chord and accompaniment instrument. As early as the 1960s, Doc Watson in the USA adapted the melodies of traditional fiddle tunes and implemented them in his virtuoso plectrum style (flatpicking) on ​​the western guitar. Guitarists from the Celtic tradition in Ireland, Scotland and Brittany later followed his example. In addition to the normal guitar tuning, the open tuning DADGAD is often used here, which offers many options for enriching the melodies due to the possibility of using many empty strings as sustained tones.

What would it sound like if you applied this approach and playing style to traditional dance music from Germany? This sheet music book contains 14 melodies from different regions of Germany, arranged for the flat picking in DADGAD. Twelve of the pieces come from old manuscripts such as the “Dahlhoff Dance Collection” that have been rediscovered and published in recent years. Two of the author’s own compositions in a traditional style round off the compilation. The book contains sheet music and tablature of the solo arrangements, in addition fingering diagrams for a chord accompaniment are given in DADGAD.(only available in German) All pieces are presented on the accompanying CD in the original tempo as well as in a slower version, and there is a duet recording for each “Tune” in which the main voice and chord accompaniment were recorded together.

14 pieces, level of difficulty medium