Irish Bouzouki tuner – GDAD
G-D-A-D · Standard
This free online tuner listens through your microphone and shows how close each string of your Irish Bouzouki is to GDAD tuning (G-D-A-D). Play a string, watch the needle, and turn the peg until the meter glows green. If you prefer tuning by ear, tap any string card to hear its reference tone.
About GDAD tuning
GDAD is the reference tuning for the Irish Bouzouki – the pitch the instrument normally ships at, and the starting point every other tuning on this page is measured from.
Played open, the strings sound G-D-A-D – from G2 at the bottom to D4 at the top, a span of 1 octave and 7 semitones. Step by step across the neck the intervals are a fifth, a fifth, a fourth, and that is what decides how chord shapes fall under the hand.
Left open, the strings together spell Gsus2. That is a by-product of how the intervals are laid out rather than the point of the tuning, but it does mean some chords need very few fingers here. See Gsus2 shapes in this tuning →
GDAD is the most common tuning on the Irish bouzouki, the flat-backed descendant of the Greek instrument that Johnny Moynihan and Alec Finn brought into Irish music in the 1960s and that Andy Irvine and Dónal Lunny made central to it with Sweeney's Men and Planxty.
Compared with the mandolin-family GDAE, the top string is dropped a tone to D, so D and A ring open on every chord. That drone suits the D and G modal tunes of the session repertoire, and it is why the instrument accompanies rather than leads.
History
Irish Bouzouki
The Irish bouzouki began with a Greek one. In the mid-1960s Johnny Moynihan of Sweeney's Men brought a Greek bouzouki into Irish traditional music and retuned it to G-D-A-D; Andy Irvine took it up, and in the early 1970s Dónal Lunny and Andy Irvine made it one of the signature sounds of Planxty.
Players soon wanted a flatter back and a wider neck. The English luthier Peter Abnett built one of the first dedicated instruments for Dónal Lunny around 1970, and the flat-backed Irish bouzouki, closer to a cittern than to its Greek ancestor, became a standard accompanying instrument in Celtic music.
Where the GDAD tuning comes from
G-D-A-D was introduced by Johnny Moynihan in the mid-1960s when he brought a Greek bouzouki into Irish music. It became the standard tuning of the Irish bouzouki through Andy Irvine and Dónal Lunny.
Other Irish Bouzouki tunings
Standard
Alternative
Chords for this tuning
How do I tune my Irish Bouzouki to GDAD?
Allow microphone access, pluck a string, and the tuner will detect it automatically. The needle shows whether the string is flat or sharp – adjust until the reading is within ±5 cents (G-D-A-D).
Which notes are used in GDAD tuning?
GDAD tuning for Irish Bouzouki uses the notes G-D-A-D, listed from the lowest string to the highest.
Can I tune without a microphone?
Yes. Every string card plays a reference tone – tap it and match your string to the sound by ear.