Reinventing the wheel: Tunings

Mike Neer · From: NJ

I have been working on expanding the C6 tuning to suit my own needs for quite a while now, while also trying to invent a new tuning that I would find more suitable for playing Jazz.

You know what? My conclusion at this time is that C6 is the perfect tuning to expand upon--I have not been able to come up with anything better. Let me explain:

In order to play jazz (with a more modern slant than, say, swing) there are certain features that I need built into the tuning, beginning with triads. I need:

C13 is the tuning that gives me all of that. Well, almost of it:

E
C
A
G
E
C
Bb
G

OK, so a while back I said that I was ordering a D-10 and that I was going to use a C6/A7 extended on one neck and the Tom Morrell E13 on the other. I have changed my mind, as I have decided to go with tunings that will work for me for what I want to do. I'm not playing any western swing or anything like that.

With regards to trying to come up with a new tuning, I have essentially sketched out hundreds of tunings and variations on existing tunings and have come to the conclusion that C6 (in altered form) contains everything I need.

The strange thing is, my D-10 will have 2 C6-based tunings. I have had the one extended C6/A7 on my mind for a long time, but it is the second tuning--an extended C13--that is really interesting, for me anyway, and gives me a lot of choices without muddying the familiar waters.

Front neck (audience side)

C13
F (.012)
E
C
A
G
E
D
C
Bb
G

Back neck
C6/A7
E (.015)
C
A
G
E
C#
A
F (.054)
D (.060)
B (.065)

The C6/A7 extension is one that I have worked on for a long time. I need those notes in bass range for my chordal work.

Needless, to say, I am really looking forward to exploring this. It may seem crazy to have 2 necks so similarly tuned, but to me they are different animals.
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Laurence Pangaro · From: Brooklyn, NY

Cool stuff, Mike!

I don't really see your two tunings as being all that similar. Yes, they're both C-based, but after that....

I could hazard some guesses, but I think I'd rather just ask you to describe how you envision the differing functions of these tunings.

ciao,
Laurence

Mike Neer · From: NJ

One of the things that is important to me is that I am able to do many of the same things on both necks, so I am not really sacrificing my melodic ideas and my own little pockets because of a different tuning. The similarities actually benefit me.

On the front neck, I have a lot more pianistic voicings available. On the C6/A7 neck, the range is far wider so it is a different chordal palette. I like to play a lot of chordal stuff in the lower range, too.

That's basically it. The combination of both necks is really just tailored for my needs, and I think it will suit them well. A few years ago, I started using 2 C6 tunings on my triple neck, but the difference was that one had a high G first string, which I just could never get into. Ultimately, that became my experimental neck.
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Jerome Hawkes · From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA

when i sold my S-8 Clinesmith to finance my T-8, the guy who purchased it was taking lessons from the legendary Bobby Black. we chatted a lot and he said that after Bobby tried just about every tuning over his career, he realized C6 was the most versatile.
everyone seriously interested in the steel has to do what you are doing - find what you need, what you dont, and expand on that. there is nothing better to force you to do this than having a steel custom made - i struggled for a year flip-flopping back and forth until i felt i had been playing long enough to not make a critical error that i couldnt live with (which i would have done earlier). of course, a year from now i could be saying duh, i should have gone with a 10 string neck, but as of now, i'm content. i had the back neck of my sho-bud perm non-pedal and i found myself stumbling more with the 10 string whereas i felt easier on the 8.

i always wondered why you never took to the diatonic / Levitt tunings Mike.
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'65 Sho-Bud D-10 Permanent • '54 Fender Dual-8 • Clinesmith T-8 • '38 Ric Bakelite • '92 Emmons D-10 Legrande II

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Nate Hofer · From: Overland Park, Kansas

Mike, just to play Devil's advocate:
If you have two kinda-sorta similar C necks with 10 strings, then why not find a solution with a single neck with pedals?

I think I know why but I'm sure you have a thoughtful answer.

Mike Neer · From: NJ

That's a good question, Nate, and I've thought about it a lot myself. I'm not opposed to pedals at all. I've talked about this stuff with Tony Locke and others, trying to gauge whether or not it would be viable for me. I've ultimately come to the conclusion that it isn't.

First, it's too much for me to wrap my head around with all the changes--I like things to be black and white. I don't like anything getting in the way of my being able to play spontaneously, because it is such a struggle for me. I know most of the pedal use on a C6 neck is for chord work, but I find that simple choices work for me. Raised and lowered strings just throw me off so much--it's taken long enough just to get used to playing in these tunings, especially C6.

Second, I have 2 left feet. Even a volume pedal is a challenge for me.

Third, I like the freedom of being able to sit or stand. I've always felt constrained behind a pedal steel.

It's always been one of my regrets that I couldn't get acclimated to playing a pedal steel, but rather than dwell on that, the one thing that keeps me happy is the challenge of playing the music I love on steel. Sometimes I wonder why I don't just go back to playing the guitar, where the language has already been developed, but I love the steel. I'm trying to combine everything I know about music, the steel guitar, and guitar into this one instrument. Non-pedal steel is just a better fit for me.

I reserve the right to change my mind at any time, but I don't think that's going to happen. Very Happy

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Jerome Hawkes · From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA

i agree line by line with you on that Mike

i am such an ADHD type that i cant sit still on a pack-a-seat for more than 20 mins - that was my main issue with pedals, sitting completely still for hours.

i do like the approach that Basil Henriques uses with pedals on his Fender 1000 - if i go pedals, thats the direction i will go. he still keeps the flavor of the non-pedal and doesnt let the pedals dictate the music, this is really the way the first adapters to pedals approached it also.
its a shame that right when the non-pedal steel was reaching its golden age, pedals came along and sent it in a different direction - i dont feel the potential of the instrument even scratched the surface.
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'65 Sho-Bud D-10 Permanent • '54 Fender Dual-8 • Clinesmith T-8 • '38 Ric Bakelite • '92 Emmons D-10 Legrande II

Nate Hofer · From: Overland Park, Kansas

Right, I feel like you, Mike, are sorta extending that mid-century era of lap steel exploration - before the pedals zeitgeist took over. Cool!

HowardR · From: N.Y.C.-Fire Island-Asheville

Herb Remington also plays pedal steel that way.....using the pedals for chord changes & tunings as opposed to sliding tones......

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

The Nashville Speedpicking Derby has never been very interesting to me. Especially as it trickles down to the intermediate/barely-pro-level, where a player moves a 1/3 lb. bar from position to position, blasting and stomping away... leaving some paying customers (me) scratching noggins & rightfully saying "Where'd the frikkin' melody go?" Duane Allman hit me too hard, it won't transfer. Or this guy, he might be a minor footnote to steel but when asked if he listened to Eddie Van Halen and the rise of shred:

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Trying to follow your train of thought, David. Not really sure how it ties in with previous posts.
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Jack Aldrich · From: Washington, USA

Mike - my C6 tuning is like yours but with a G rather than an F on top. A lot of Hawaiian steelers use this tuning, too.
G
E
C
A
G
E
Bb
G

Bobby Ingano has a 7 string Rick bakelite without the low G, Alan Akaka doesn't have the high G or the low Bb, but replaces it with a low C:
E
C
A
G
E
C
G
C
- Jack

Jack Aldrich · From: Washington, USA

Oh - my lower neck is C13, and my upper neck is B11:
E
C#
A
G#
D#
B
F#
B
which is great for swing tunes. The upper 5 strings are an A6, and the lower 5 are a B7. Lots of great fat chords, and the II9 is on the same fret as the I. - Jack

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

Well, it seems to me that if you're still (somewhat?) engaged in the search for the secret magic tuning, and saying things like:

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

I'm sure you know this, but your Extended C13 intervals are very closely related to the E9 pedal steel intervals:

Mike Neer · From: NJ

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

If I understand the history of it, to a large extent, the E9 tuning did evolve lick-by-lick. It started with the "Slowly" lick by Bud Isaacs.

just Google this- "the "Slowly" lick by Bud Isaacs"
At one point, somebody here had built up that history, and a certain points the pedals were even nicknamed after their inventor, as is the Franklin pedal still.

Herb Remington at the time had one neck in "E13":
1 - E
2 - C#
3 - G#
4 - E
5 - Bb
6 - F#
7 - D# HIGH
8 - F# HIGH

And Buddy Emmons put those two strings on top. I don't know exactly which pedal then knees were added by who, but the modern somewhat-settled E9 tuning did build up pedal by pedal, song by song. And the road and local players needed those to duplicate the records. And as it turned out, the tuning that was built turned out to be very versatile and capable of handling creative urges (especially if you like a wholetone-pull-to-unison Cool

), but it wasn't designed by some great musicologist or master of music theory looking at a blank page and then filling it in. And the tuning then folded back to make more music. Regarding the 12-string, the stock tuning that Reece employs is:

D
B
G
E
C
A
G
E
C
A
F
D

So he's going to the high G of the older C6 pedal style but using the top two sting for the "chromatic" strings.

Edward Meisse · From: Santa Rosa, California, USA

I tried C6 with pedals. And I found that what I got was a great deal of extra effort of all kinds and very little additional music making ability given my approach to the instrument. It was the mechanics of the thing that really threw me. But 54 pounds of instrument to haul around was a drawback too. I think that unless you're a tinkerer, pedal guitars are not for you.
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Amor vincit omnia

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

I spent some time trying out different "organized" sets of intervals, like

2nd+4th+2nd+4th etc:

C#
B
F#
E
B
A
E
D
A
G
D
C

Lots of 4ths and 5ths, a few M7ths, no 3rds, m3rds or 6ths close enough to each other to hear...

Root-m3rd, R-4th, then start over with a m3rd and 4th above each successive 4th etc:

Ab
F
Eb
C
Bb
G
F
D
C
A

you get 6ths back, but the only M3rds are inverted....

I ran through a bunch of these, just scribble down a "rule", write it out and figure it out later, and to get a tuning that supplies the basic needs, I still end up with: the major scale minus the B's and F's, or a major scale minus the B's, F's and D's.

AKA "C6th".... with a sprinkling of D's as needed.

Edward Meisse · From: Santa Rosa, California, USA

Now if you are a tinkerer, you could get a guitar with, for starters, one knee lever that changes the tuning. As you figure out what changes you need, you could add levers and/or pedals.
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Amor vincit omnia

Bob Stone · From: Gainesville, FL, USA

Hi Mike,

I like your extended C13. The F on top and the D in the 7th string make a lot of sense to me.

I also believe the intervals and inversions available in C6, in combination with string gauges that feel "right" to me, are very versatile.

I look forward to seeing and hearing what you come up with as you explore your new D10.

All the best,

Bob

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