Drop D Tuning & Voicings

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Check now. Check now, check now. Howdy my friends. Happy craftsman. Good to see you. Who else is here? Please say hello. Please say hello. Today we're gonna talk a little bit about drop D. I'm sure many of you are uber familiar, some of you may not be. But uh, I wanted to give you just a very simple lesson, um, on the different ways you can use drop D and some basic shapes, uh, to use them with. And then I'm gonna open it up. That should not take very long. Then I'm gonna open it up to questions and try to help you with whatever you may be working on. Dean, good to see you. Glad you got the email. Rex. Good to see you Rex Pate. Very cool. Love your name. Who else is out there on this Friday? Who else is there? Alright, no one else wants to say hello. That's fine. We'll just jump right in. So I don't typically play a lot of alternate uh, tunings. Uh, I tend to really stick with standard just because I've been working. Let me fix this real quick, for a long time to learn my neck and standard. The one notable exception is drop D. So many of my favorite songs, especially heavy songs, are in Drop D. For those who are not familiar, that's when you drop your low string, your six string to become the note D, which is the same as the fourth string. So if you have a tuner, use it. But I would implore each of you to actually try to practice with your ear finding how, finding where that D is. So if you're in standard, I'll tune up to standard, right? I got a little distortion on, I typically play clean too, but it's drop D. So why I'd have some fun. So if you're in, if you're in standard tuning, take your open D-ring, Sorry. And your open estring tune slowly your six string down till it stops shaking till it sounds the same. You hear how it sounds, right? You wanna check it a few times, but it's in D. So now what does this give you? The main thing that it gives you, okay, aside from being in D, is the ability to play power chords with one finger. Okay? Power chord, if you remember, is a root and a fifth. So you can play them, right? It goes root, fifth root. You could play two strings or even just one, or even all three strings, right? Because now your open sixth and fourth are tuned the same. So you can play just this, right? Or you can play all three, right? When you would kind of use them differently. It's just if you want a bigger, thicker sound, play all three. The first thing I want you to try to do, okay, is just realize that since these are tuned the same, you can ride up and down your neck and get octaves, okay? Being on the same fret. So, so that's your first step. See if you can make a little riff or something out of just using those octaves, Very cool sound. Then add in that fifth again, same fret, just the fifth strings. Now we all know that sound very well. So what is a different shape that you might be looking to use for drop D? You have your single notes, right, right, right. Now what about your other power cord? Your inverted power cord. If you remember in standard tuning, I'll go back up in standard tuning, our power cords look like this root on the sixth string and then fifth on the fifth string, two frets apart, right? But what is the other perfect interval? When you flip, when you flip the root in the fifth, okay, and you actually put the fifth in the base, it creates an aversion of itself. That's a perfect fourth interval. So when the root of the cord, the name of the cord is on the fifth string, this is when you bar, so like if I'm on C, right? Like this, this is my C power cord. Notice I have C and G like this, and I go, I can put this G in the base and play just these two notes, G and C, and I'm getting And inverted power cord. Okay? So my root is not in the base, it's an inversion. So fifth is in the base. Here's my regular and this would be my version. Hopefully a lot of you are hip to that sound because it's super heavy when you put the fifth in the bass and the bass player is playing the root of on the bass, on the bass guitar, you get a full stacked power chord with no intervals being skipped. So whenever you have a song where you have a root on the fifth string, try adding the fifth and the base, see how much heavier that sounds. Now check this out. This obviously works anywhere on the neck. So if I have a G power cord, I can play this G in this D right here. I now have G in the base on my fifth string and D, or sorry D in the base on my fifth string and G in the base on my fourth string. Hopefully you guys are all familiar with this, but the point I'm trying to make is that there are two main power cord shapes that I want you to have in your bag in standard tuning. Okay? That's with your fingers spread out like this, And then next to each other. So root position and then fifth in the base Or here. Now we're gonna do those in drop D. So let's go back to D. Sometimes I like to go under and come back up, make sure I'm there. So same thing. Now our root is in the base, right? So what if I want to do the inversion? What if I wanna put the fifth in the base? So if my C chord is here, my root in my fifth, and I wanna put this in the base. Remember this is an octave. Now this is the same fret on the sixth string. So it's, it's right there. So you get this, this shape, you see that you can play it like this with your pinky. Or if you want to just omit the four string and play it like that, you can get it, put the four string back in. So that's, those are the two main shapes for power cords that you want to have in your bag. If your root is on the six string, it's one finger, everything's on the same fret root, fifth root. If your root is on the fifth string, it is this shape where it's two frets up to frets higher on the neck for for the fifth, for on both the six and four strings, right? Very, very cool sound. Now what about when we're playing thirds? Again, for a lot of you, this is probably very elementary and you're just like, yeah Michael, this is obvious. But if you haven't messed around with, you know, playing with your roots, or sorry, with your fifths on your sixth string playing power chords, you're welcome. It's a lot of fun like that. Going back to D after your riffing. Very cool. Now what about your thirds? Let's go back to standard to illustrate. Went a little past, gimme one second. Uh, okay, so what about thirds When you're doing power cords, check this out. This is your root and your fifth. This is a D power cord, or down here on C, there's two main ways to get your, to get a major third, to get an actual cord to ring out. And that's drop your root one half step and this now becomes the major third and your root. So like this, it creates that sound. So one chord, five chord. So that's the same as going. So a lot, all of you out there that play in bands with two guitars and you have something that riffs like that and it goes, Try not matching what the other guitar's doing and just dropping on the fifth string to get that right. It's a lot of fun to do that and it's a cool sound and you'll sound a little different in the mix. The other one is, again, the inversion. Put your fifth in the base. If we're on C power cord here, we put our fifth in the base, where's our major third right there, second fret, fourth string. And so you get this little, this little move. Now you can omit the root, you can omit C, it sounds too muddy and just do this and that sounds amazing in the mix. Again, you have a guitar, you have a band where people are going C like this big. See like this, try doing, try doing that. Mega death does this a lot. This is one of the um, one of the Dave Mustain classics where you play a lot of major thirds in these heavy riffs, right? You know? So now let's take those to drop D and find out where they are. So let's go back to D again, go under close enough. So if we are, let's stick with that same one. If we're in C here like this, You Drop it down, same move. Remember, these two are the same. So if you're coming from this really, really heavy, really filthy, it requires a lot of muddy, muddy, muddy, muddy. But again, check this out, you can also do that spread like this. Remember? So you can do that, that thing. So you can go, so you can go Very neat. Ah, yeah. Massive punk pop vibe. Totally. Robert, good to see you. Glad to see you caught a live lesson. I don't play anything in this style though. I know, I know. I don't typically, uh, play a lot of heavier stuff on the channel and on the site. I tend to keep it clean, but I'm trying to mix it up. If it's not for you, it's not for you. Um, but those are the main things. Uh, the main shapes I want you to take away from this. For anybody that hasn't tried to play and drop DA lot or has just only done the first finger power cord. And that's to remember, you not only have your root based power cords, you have octaves, you have fifth based power cords. Remember this shape when your fifth is in the base. I'm gonna get to that in a second, Robert, right? And then also don't forget, you can drop this fifth, fourth, and even get to a third omit the root and you get that super heavy major third voicing. Again, this is, this is, I keep saying mega death, but they did it. They incorporated the major third into heavy stuff. So well that, That's just an awesome sound. Now if we take distortion off, can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now? I hope so. Let me know if you can hear me. Okay, good. One of the things you'll find, um, in drop D when you're, when you're clean like this, or even when you're dirty, is like if you play a lot of these open chords, there's your D right C like this. But a lot of times you'll play your G omitting the six string and just put your third in the base, just like that, right? So you can do A, D, C, G, Or obviously you have like the, and you can make those just those big huge chords. The other thing I want to make sure everyone tries if you haven't already, is just mess around and drop D in the key of D. And especially find out, use it as a petal tone so you have that ringing out and practice these harmonized triads that we've worked on so much and try them all the way around the neck. One place I would implore you to start, find that major third. That is the ninth fret on the fifth string. Okay, that's F sharp with this open D that's about as sweet as it gets on the guitar. This is the mud spot when you're in drop and you make this little move here, like this DF sharp D and you're in this zone, the guitar just rings like a bell. This this zone for drop D when you get clean even when you're dirty is everything. Yeah, such a sweet sound. The craftsman. I know, but this, it is an awesome sound, awesome place to start. So that is it my friends. That is it. That is all I want to give you, uh, for this intro to kind of drop D lesson. Um, just remember you have more than just the Right. You have more than just the one finger moving. You have root in the base, you have fifth in the base shapes. You can grab thirds, you have octaves. And I want you to try using it as a pedal tone and get out of just thinking that, um, uh, how do I put this? We've all exhausted exploring the key of E, right? You play an open E and you have all those Try it in D try thinking in d in terms of like an open instrument, right? For me, I mean, I get why so many guitar players tuned down to E flat. Uh, it, it just resonates a little better on a lot of guitars. But for me, like drop D in this zone, it just, everything just rings like a bell. Like I feel it vibrating and that's it. Alright, well wow, that was a half an hour. Wow. So now I'd like to open it up to anything you would like to talk about guitar related. What are you working on? Open forum. Open lesson. The world is your oyster. Um, but I do hope that you at least leave this lesson and you try whether it's clean or distorted, um, moving beyond just the one finger power cord drop d but try to use some fifth in the base shapes and throw some thirds in there and come up in octaves and come up with some cool sounds. Anybody seeing any good shows this weekend? Anything on the radar? I um, think I'm gonna see Bonnie rate this coming Wednesday here in Baltimore. Um, I have never seen Bonnie. She is perhaps my favorite singer that's alive just about. Um, and I couldn't be more excited about that. I'm hoping that I can swing it with the sports schedule, but that's what I got on my horizon. What else? Do you guys have anything? Gary Clark, where you seeing Gary Clark? Danny Mack in London, Ontario? I don't, I'm not sure I'm familiar with Danny Mack. Um, Robert saw the Decemberists a couple weeks ago. Do you like them? So I know. Oh, Cleveland to Ohio. Nice. Rex. Um, I know of the Decemberists. I have not dug deep into their music. Um, maybe I should send me, upload a live track, uh, to the reacts request page if you would. I would, I, I know that people love that band and I would love to dig into like a really good live performance. Um, how were they? Tell me how they were, but drop a video in there. 'cause I will, I'll go back and look for it because that has me curious. All right, my friends. I guess that's it. I love you all. Um, hope they were great having tour since pre covid, having good to have them back. Awesome. Robert, drop a video in there. Um, I guess that's it everybody. So I, again, I hope this inspires you to try some different shapes on Drop D. For most of you, you're probably super familiar with this, but just a friendly reminder that it's more than just a one finger power cord shape. I love you all. I'll see you very soon and thanks so much for taking some time outta your day. To tune in, uh, send you an email link. Yeah, do that. Do that, Susan. You're very welcome. Can't figure out your discord. Well, Robert, the best, um, the best way is to go on the reacts request page, so it's guitar gate.com/showcase. But if you hit the big reacts button in the header, it'll go there more. John Butler, Don, same to you. Send me a video, Riley. You're welcome. Appreciate you all. See you soon. Cheers.