Leavitt Tuning

Joel Glassman · From: Waltham MA USA

I heard Mike Ihde play chord jazz solos
recently and was very impressed.
A couple of questions: do people play
"linear" improvised solos in this tuning?
Also do people use this tuning on pedal
steel guitars? I'm a very experienced
musician on guitar violin, mandolin--
but would be a beginner on steel. thanks, Joel

Doug Beaumier · From: Northampton, MA

Hi Joel,

The Leavitt tuning is a fairly new tuning. It's very good for playing jazz chords... dim, m7, b5, 9th, etc. As far as scales and single note lines, I find that there is some dominant 7th stuff that lays out pretty nicely within the tuning, and the tuning's open diminished chord offers some interesting single notes riffs. IMHO it's not great for playing the major scales. As with most any 6 string lap steel tuning, there is a lot of bar motion involved in playing scales.

If you like jazz and standards, check out the Leavitt tuning. You'll need to pick the strings very selectively, as the voicings are complicated.

If you want a basic all-round 6 string lap steel tuning for majors, minors, and 6th chords, go with C6 (E,C,A,G,E,C high to low). C6 offers more strumming of the strings and is a little easier and smoother sounding IMHO. It's heard a lot in western swing, Hawaiian, and 50's country. I've got a 1958 Oahu D-6 that I take out occasionally on gigs, and I have Leavitt on the front neck and C6 on the rear neck.

There has been quite a bit of discussion here about the Leavitt tuning in the past couple of years. If you click on "search" up on top of this page and type in "Leavitt tuning" a list of these discussions will come up. Joe Wright has some computer generated "mode charts" for the Leavitt tuning on his site that are pretty interesting.

Here is my arrangement for Someone To Watch Over Me for the Leavitt tuning which appeared in SGW magazine a few years ago: www.valinet.com/~doug/someone.jpg

------------------
www.dougbsteel.com

[This message was edited by Doug Beaumier on 02 November 2000 at 12:04 PM.]

Mike Ihde · From: Boston, MA

Joel,
I have written out some single line Jazz solos and then tried to play them. It's not easy. But the beauty of this tuning is in the chords. That's why Jerry Byrd agrees that it works really well as the second or third neck. I haven't heard of anyone trying it on Pedal Steel but it is available there. On the C6th neck, change the C to C# with a pedal, raise the A to Bb and retune the second string to D rather than E and there you go. It may be more trouble than it's worth, but, it's a way Pedal players can get a glimpse of how well it works without having to try it on Lap Steel.

[This message was edited by Mike Ihde on 08 November 2000 at 08:12 PM.]

Doug Beaumier · From: Northampton, MA

Roy Thomson has been experimenting with a 10 string Leavitt extension tuning. To hear what it sounds like click here

Scan down that page to song #25... Leavitt extension tuning.

------------------
www.dougbsteel.com

Joel Glassman · From: Waltham MA USA

Thanks for the feedback everyone. -Joel

Forum Index > Steel Without Pedals		Next oldest topic :: Next newest topic

All times are GMT - 8 Hours	Jump to: