Extending E9 on a D10

Tom Gorr · From: Three Hills, Alberta

Most of my C6 playing has been on a loaded C6 coped...my E9B6 12 string Uni is no longer the fit I think I can move forward with for live work as the 6th tuning begins to take a stronger role.... I seriously considered moving ahead with an E6E9 also known as the E13 tuning, but I really don't want to have yet another set of grips and copedent to learn. I am 20 years older than I used to be.

Most of my E9 playing had been on a Uni, and standard E9 just doesn't quite fit the way I have learned and / or necessaily want to play. .. I use that extended bottom of E9 on the Uni tuning for some cello type sonic layering for example.

Thus am considering tuning my E9 neck as the top 10 strings of my Uni, bottom to top:

G# B E F# G# B E G# D# F#

and a slight tweak to the traditional D10 coped.

Comments?

Norman Evans · From: Tennessee

That's how I tune open. Here's my copedent, works for my playing style.

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

I have tinkered (on paper) with 10-string universal tunings and there seem to be two solutions - lose the bottom two strings of the B6/E9 which loses a negligible amount of weight but a lot of music - or go for some sort of E13 setup, which is likely to be a disappointment after the effort of learning to play it because the pitch centre would be wrong, like trying to play a tenor sax part on the alto.

Of course we should look for new ways of doing things, but from the viewpoint of the Uni 12 anything else looks like a backward step to me.
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Tom Gorr · From: Three Hills, Alberta

Thanks for input thus far.

Dont want it to get lost that I will be putting this on a D10... with the full C6 coped on back neck and a 10 string semi extended E9 on front neck that have a few of my most used Uni changes as well.... without it being full on 10 string Uni.

I am hoping someone will talk me out of it so that I will someday be able to play someone else's guitar other than my own
.. lol

However I am getting more optimistic about this idea the more I envision my needs.

Bruce Derr · From: Lee, New Hampshire, USA

Henry Brooks · From: Los Gatos, California, USA

I thought about adding a low E to my SD-10 E9th. But never tried it. My idea was to remove the 2nd string D# and the 9th string D,so you end up with a F#,G#,E,B,G#,E,B,G#,E. This would be the same as the universal without the 12th string. How well it would work for you depends how much you use the 2nd string D# in your E9th playing. You can lower the 3rd string E to D# on a lever. But that might be a problem on speed picking licks.
Henry

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

My friend Johnnie Robbins went from a U-12 to an S-10 and did what you describe. He never had a D string. He was used to the low G# and the full A6th chord with pedals down. I've performed on his S-10 and it seemed very intuitive to me.
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Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

I'm surprised that the 9th string D has persisted when it is so easy to lower 8 or raise 10 (or both so you have a choice). It can't be anything to do with mechanism - you can even do it on a pull-release - so it's just conservatism, I suppose. When I played D10 I always felt there was a string missing off the bottom of the E9 even if it only played A.
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Bruce Derr · From: Lee, New Hampshire, USA

In my first band as a steel player in the mid-'70s I played a raised-neck Maverick with no knee levers. We did a lot of western swing and shuffles. With no KL to lower the Es I used the A6 pedals-down position a lot, and to this day I still feel more at home there than the B6 position for swingy stuff. Maybe that's one reason why I don't mind tuning the 10th to open A.

Tom Gorr · From: Three Hills, Alberta

Glad to hear players are happy with this approach.

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

In the back of Winnie Winston's book is a copedent attributed to Ernie Hagar where the A and B pedals work upside down, that is to say the instrument stands in A6 and the As and C#s lower to G# and B. Am I right that A6 was a popular tuning in pre-pedal days and that such an arrangement would have made sense to many players?
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Jeff Harbour · From: Western Ohio, USA

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Can't argue with that - anyone might feel the same if they were starting right from scratch.
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Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Here is a proposed A6/E9 tuning. The lower two strings are optional.

I shall never build it because I would never learn to play it. The only person who might find it attractive could be a non-pedal player coming to pedals for the first time. Maybe. Anyway, here it is - over to you guys to spot the bugs...

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John Goux · From: California, USA

I believe you would want string 2 to be a D natural as the 4th degree of the key of A. With options to raise and lower by half steps.
J

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

Yes John, you're absolutely right but I hadn't thought it through that far.
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Tom Gorr · From: Three Hills, Alberta

Interesting work Ian.

Stanley Benoit · From: New Iberia,Louisiana, USA

try 1F# C# G# E B G# F# E B 10G# use standard E9th pulls on the G#-A,B-C# gives you A6th been using this for years I agree it's different
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Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

As I mentioned elsewhere, I'm surprised how that low D string has survived as long as it has. Whether you want to play B6 or A6, it's right in the way!

Historically, I believe that the E string we now call 8 was introduced by Jimmy Day, and I guess the D string is a hangover from before then.
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Tom Gorr · From: Three Hills, Alberta

I have thought the same thing. .. but then you grab a grip with the D note as a root and press the A and or B pedal and wonder if you ever truly want to get rid of it. ... maybe its the E that needs to go...lol

Bruce Derr · From: Lee, New Hampshire, USA

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

Why not get rid of the 7th string instead? Devil

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Bruce Derr · From: Lee, New Hampshire, USA

Ha, interesting idea, it never occurred to me. I suppose it might accomplish the same sort of thing, if 8 were raised on a KL. But I think I'd miss 7 too much.

I suppose if I played a D-10 I wouldn't have ever taken the 9th off. But as a die-hard singleneck guy it works for me.

Regardless of whether 9 was there or not, I'd still lower 8 to D because of some interesting chord movement it allows from position to position.

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

Actually, I'm serious. Think about it. The C6th tuning doesn't have that middle 9th tone (it would be a D between the E and C). Lots of people lower their G# to F# on a knee lever. Some (including Paul Franklin) raise the 8th string E to F# on their 'C' pedal. How necessary is the 7th string F#, if you can get the note in two other ways?

On my 8-string D6th, I raise both D's to E on the vertical lever. At first I thought I'd lost a lot of licks, but after a while I got used to using a lever the same way that U-12 players get used to using a lever to get the D string notes.

In standard orchestral arranging theory, there is always more space between lower notes. The C6th tuning reflects this with wider intervals on the low strings. E9th is a higher tuning, so it keeps with the 5 strings per octave concept. If you want lower strings on a 10 string E9th, maybe it would be better to model the low end after the C6th, spreading out the intervals in the lower register:

Georg Sørtun · From: Mandal, Agder, Norway

You guys may end up copying my "extended E" tuning...
http://www.gunlaug.no/tos/var/s10tt-10.html
...with the strings in a more normal order ??? Very Happy

I took out the regular 7th and 9th string in 1988 - replaced them with extended low G# and E, and lower the G#s (all three of them) to F# on a lever. I also raise all Es to F and F# on a lever on the original PSG I tailored the tuning for.

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