Advantages of C#min based tunings?

Jerome Hawkes · From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA

Lately, i've been trying to explore some of the earlier steel guitar tunings. I'm not all that familiar with the C#min family of tunings (including min7 / F#9) so i set out to transcribe some of Dick McIntire's intros and breaks. what i found was they laid out much better on C6 when i went to transpose them over. just wondering from you players that have experience with C#min, just what 'advantage' (i know every steel tuning has pros & cons) you find. is it just historical accuracy that you like, or flavor of the tuning that appeals to you?

curious about this, i'm getting into earlier steel and have my 7 string frypan tuned up. I like the F#9 and can see its 'advantage' - great tuning.

i'll post my transcription of Dicks intro to 'Night of Tropic Love' in C#min vs C6 a bit later to illustrate. I know Jerry spent a lot of time studying Dick's playing and its revealing he evolved C6 to get everything the C#min had (which was considered the 'advanced' tuning of the day) and more.
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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

The short answer (I just got home from a 6 hour drive), is that C#min, developed by Sol Hoopii, offered him the same 2 notes as the A tuning on top, but with the change of the 3rd string, introduced possibilities for dominant chords. There are so many uses for the minor triad on the top 3 strings. C6 wasn't in use yet. Also, C#min is very bass friendly, which was really part of Sol's style, not so much McIntire.

It's the tuning I learned to play on because of its similarity to the E tuning and the fact that I was playing period sounding music.
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Jerome Hawkes · From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA

thanks mike - i know you spent a few years playing C#m on tricone.

i hate i didn't start non-pedal 10 years ago back when the old gang was still around here - Carl Dixon, Kenny Dail, c.c johnson, Roy Ayers, etc - those guys all came up back in the day and had a wealth of knowledge. its kind of hard to back track thru historical relevance without them. sure miss those guys and their wisdom.
i do like the bass variation concept with the C#min family - tuning 5&6 different gives nice variety while keeping all the melody strings the same interval stack. genius.
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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

Ray Montee · From: Portland, Oregon (deceased)

I learned some early tunes in C#min from the Gibson Course and possibly Oahu but can't recall for sure.

I always found that all to often I'd end a phrase or whatever where a BIG FAT chord would have been beautiful and yet in that tuning, I was only able to
end the phrase on a single string, note.

Recently, there was a rather long post about a little known female steel player; she had a BIGSBY and a double neck her husband made for her. She played exclusively in C#min and it truly sounded great but she too, would often end up with a single note phrase rather than a full chord.

The only two songs I was ever able to play to my satisfaction were "Coquette" and "Boot Heel Drag".

I apologize for not being able to recall her name at this time. By listening closely, I was able to pick up some 'thingies' that I had never before realized.

Jerome Hawkes · From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA

per your reply mike - i'm thinking the main 'pro' for this tuning (historically) was its relationship to the old E major tuning. All you had to do was tune the second string up to C# - everything else stayed the same. or as you mention, from the A maj - just tuning up the G#>A

E
B>>C#
G#
E
B
E

it's just Open E with the B string sharped to C#. this has obvious advantages for someone with only 1 guitar. (** this would be technically C#min7/E6 with the s5 @ B)
then players started fiddling with strings 5&6 to get other chord options.
perfect solution...like i mentioned, its hard to back track historically and make sense of it all. Its interesting to start looking at these tunings as a group of available 'options' and not so much individual tunings - starts to make more logical sense
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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

George Macdonald · From: Vancouver Island BC Canada

Back in the late 1950s, [yea, I'm gettin old] I took lessons on a metal bodied Rick from a teacher in Vancouver BC. He was a big fan of Sol Hoopii and we worked on the C#min tuning. I think my bottom bass string was tuned to a high B making it C#min7. I've been away from the lap steel for a long time, concentrating on pedal steel, but recently my interest has been renewed in non pedal. I still have 2 bakelite Ricks, a walnut 8 string Magnatone, and just last week received a new 8 string Melbert. The C#min still works great on my 6 string Ricks, or A6th, and I tune my 8 strings to A6th. Lots of fun getting back into it.

Morgan Scoggins · From: Georgia, USA

The "Steel Guitar Method For the Serious Student" by Jerry Byrd has a full section dealing with the C#m tuning. The first couple of songs "Song of the Islands' and "Aloha Tears" are played in the standard C#mi ( E C# G# E B E). Jerry then moves on to what he calls C#mi9 tuning ( E C# G# F# E D). In this tuning there are some wonderful arrangements of songs like "Paradise Isle", "Sweet Someone", "Ua Like No Like" and maybe one or two others. Thre is also a couple of pages of intros and endings in the C#mi9 tuning. This is really great material. I learned is a few years ago and I rarely sit down to my steel that I don't go over some of this great music.
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"Shoot low boys, the're ridin' Shetlands"

Mike Neer · From: NJ

A lot of the answers are right here, Jerome:

http://www.mikeneer.com/lapsteelin/2013/02/22/sol-hoopiis-tour-de-force-12th-st-rag/
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Jerome Hawkes · From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA

yes, the JB method is great. i'm just now going 'back' to the front of the book - i jumped to the C6 section first, worked thru that and am now backtracking. i'm beginning to understand why JB did this now (progressing the student thru the evolution of tunings)
i had transcribed JBs 'Moonland' some years ago when i first started and it laid out perfectly on C6 - yet he teaches it in C#min in the method. interesting.

thanks mike, i will work on that - thanks for posting it.
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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

Morgan Scoggins · From: Georgia, USA

I can see how you stayed with the C6 tuning. The C#mi tuning has strings 1,2, and 3 arranged in a Root, 6th, and third sequence, hi to low. When you move these three strings down two frets, you get a major 6th chord to a dominant 9th chord progression. This movement can be herd in a number of songs, but is really dominant in Herb Remington's "Boot Heel Drag". The C#mi tuning makes this movement easy on the high three strings, but with the C6 tuning you get the same result with strings two, three and five. I use a variety of tunings and if I am playing A6, I simply drop my 3rd string from a to G# for C#mi tuning. IF I am tuned to C6, I just use the 2,3,5 string combination. Same result but the key changes.
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"Shoot low boys, the're ridin' Shetlands"

Jack Aldrich · From: Washington, USA

Remember, C# minor is the same as E6. I have often said that a 6th tuning has multiple advantages on non-pedal steel. C6, D6, E6, G6, A6 just have you playing in a different home position.
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Jack Aldrich
Carter & ShoBud D10's
D8 & T8 Stringmaster
Rickenbacher B6
3 Resonator guitars
Asher Alan Akaka Special SN 6
Canopus D8

Jack Aldrich · From: Washington, USA

Remember, C# minor is the same as E6. I have often said that a 6th tuning has multiple advantages on non-pedal steel. C6, D6, E6, G6, A6 just have you playing in a different home position.
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Jack Aldrich
Carter & ShoBud D10's
D8 & T8 Stringmaster
Rickenbacher B6
3 Resonator guitars
Asher Alan Akaka Special SN 6
Canopus D8

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Jack, it's not the same tunng. Technically, yes, the tuning contains all of the notes of the E6 chord, but it does not contain the adjacent 5th and 6th degrees common to all other 6th tunings. There is a difference. E6 would be E C# B G# E etc.

I feel like we've been over this before. Smile

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Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

Mike,
When I played a Fender T-8 Stringmaster, that is how I had my C#m7th neck set up.

Mike Neer · From: NJ

I think one of the cool discoveries since Jerome's posting of a C#min7 vs. C6 comparison of a recording by Dick McIntire is that it's the first time it has come to light that Dick McIntire at some point added a high G# to his tuning and lowered the B to A#, making it an F#9 tuning. We've known about the F#9, but it was always assumed that the 1st string was E. If you listen to his MacGregor transcriptions from 1941, you can hear it clearly.

I have just picked out the individual notes of a strum, and can spell the tuning as:

G#
E
C#
G#
E
A#
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Jack Aldrich · From: Washington, USA

Jerome Hawkes · From: Fayetteville, North Carolina, USA

i was just recalling from memory - but didn't Speedy West use the F#9 on 1 neck of his Bigsby? seems he had reentrant strings on 7&8 - possibly the hi G#?
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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

Bengt Erlandsen · From: Brekstad, NORWAY

The thing that looks real cool at first sight with E B E G# C# E is to me that you have 3 string pairs that are 6th intervals and makes for easy slanting between major/minor 6th.

Jerry Hendrix · From: Manistee, Michigan, USA * R.I.P.

I can remember "little Roy Nickles" using the C# tuning
on the Eddy Arnold tune, "Texarkana Baby".. I saw that
I just had to raise my 2nd string B, up to C# & the rest, was easy..But that was "Back in the Day"..1950`s.
I learned to play , listining to Roy on Eddys`records.
Jerry Hendrix
Manistee, Michigan.

Bob Tuttle · From: Republic, MO 65738

That would be Little Roy Wiggins on the Eddy Arnold recordings.

Jerry Hendrix · From: Manistee, Michigan, USA * R.I.P.

Yeah, thats` right.
Lots of little Roy`s running around out there,& I`m glad I got to meet them both...Jerry Hendrix..

Sebastian Müller · From: Berlin / Germany

To say it in Henry Bogdan words: (from Mike Neers Steel lapsteeling blog):

'The 9th slant on the top 3 stringsâ€“thatâ€™s the shit. I canâ€™t play without that.'

The man is right : ) !

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