Celtic Flatpicking Open D Guitar Tuning

Celtic Guitar Flatpicking in Open D Guitar. Tuning your guitar to DADF#AD or “Open D” tuning compliments Celtic guitar music perfectly. 30+ Celtic session tunes and songs. Jigs, reels, songs, hornpipes, waltzes, plus useful tips for Flatpicking and ornamentation. DADF#AD chords and arpeggios, Celtic strumming patterns, Campanella major, minor and modal scales, plus a DADF#AD fingerboard chart.

Tuning your guitar to DADF#AD or "Open D" compliments Celtic music brilliantly.  The open tuning allows the strings to vibrate easily, creating drones and overlapped notes that sound reminiscent of a harp or bagpipe. Open D is also called "Vestapol Tuning."

The 30+ tunes represent a good selection of well known Celtic session tunes including, jigs, reels, hornpipes, waltzes and songs.  Each tune shows notation, tablature and chords.  Some of the tunes are arranged with chords added in with the melody, while the faster tunes just have the melody line.  See the audio tracks below to play along or with the accompaniment tracks to help learn the tunes quickly.

If you are new to this style, then check out my twelve useful tips for Flatpicking.  There are also some examples of how to use ornamentation to further embellish the tunes.

For further study in Open D, I have included a series of chord and arpeggio charts with fingerboard diagrams.  These charts will help you learn the DADF#AD fingerboard and allow you to accompany in Open D with Major, Minor and Dominant 7^th chords.

Campanella (overlapping) scales in Major and Minor are given plus Mixolydian and Dorian modal scales, which are common in this style.  Use these scales as a technical practice to help master the fingerboard and to help achieve a flowing legato-sound to play the tunes.

There is also a small selection of common chords in Open D, some Celtic strumming patterns in 4/4 and 6/8, and note charts and DADF#AD fingerboard charts.  If you are new to reading tablature, there is a page on how to read tablature and how to read rhythms.

Review Quotes

"I used this book with my Dobro and it worked great, thanks!"  John W.

"good assortment of picking songs and jigs"  M. Earle

"I go between both books (DADGAD - Open D).  Nice to have the option in different guitar tunings"   L.L. Smith