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Topic: Tuning Advice |
David Thornburgh
From:
Philadelphia, PA
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Posted 5 May 2008 2:58 am |
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I'm looking for a little lap steel tuning advice. I'm an occasional lap steel player interested in playing David Lindley style in a an alt-country/Americana band. I've mostly played in open E or D tunings before, but I'm debating the merits of C6 tuning--watched a cool Youtube video of Duke Levine and a lap steel player last night who was playing in C6.
Any thoughts on which tuning I'd be better off with? I know C6 is the standard in a lot of traditional country and swing styles and E and D are more common in rock and blues. And, no, for the time being I can't swing two steels in two different tunings!
Once I get another pedal steel, I'll be playing that in E9, if that makes a difference in the choice. Any thoughts welcome.
David |
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Fred
From:
Amesbury, MA
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Posted 5 May 2008 5:27 am
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I've found G6 to work really well for me for playing folk, folk-rock, rock and blues.
D High
B
G
E
D
B Low
Sometimes I'll tune the low B to G
I've tried C6, but always end up retuning to E6 or E13 when I play with others
CEGACE retuned to C#EG#BC#E or DF#G#BC#E
Fred |
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Edward Meisse
From:
Santa Rosa, California, USA
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Posted 5 May 2008 8:09 am
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C6 and the E6 and E13 that Fred mentioned are different in that in the E tunings the root is on top rather than the third. Other than that they are very similar, especially the E6. There is another E6 (G#-E-C#-B-G#-E) hi to lo that is exactly the same as the C6. It may be useful as well. The question I think you need to ask is what are you trying to accomplish. The tunings being discussed are tunings that were developed for chordal play. I find the C6 is also very good for arpeggios. That makes it great for swing and traditional jazz and other very chord progression oriented music.
Question 2 is what keys do you play in most often. C6 puts the most often used chords of jazz age popular music in good places on the neck.
Open G tuning is used in Bluegrass because so much of that music is played in G, C and D. You have lots of open strings at your disposal in any key. And when it's in A or E, you don't have to capo up very far to have that same open string selection.
E tuning is used in rock. I'm ignorant here. But back in my teenaged years a great deal of rock used to be played in E and A.
I would say tune to the music you want to play.
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Amor vincit omnia |
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