| Author |
Topic: Favorite Key For Playing 6-String C6 (E-C-A-G-E-C) |
Jack Hanson
From:
San Luis Valley, USA
|
Posted 13 Feb 2021 10:09 am |
|
| What key(s) do you favor when playing the standard C6 setup on a 6-string instrument, and why? |
|
|
 |
Allan Revich
From:
Victoria, BC
|
Posted 13 Feb 2021 1:20 pm
|
|
Though I don’t use this tuning, my answer will still apply to it. I prefer songs to be in the key of whatever is across the open strings, or the 2nd or the 7th fret. So on a C6 tuned lap steel it would be C, D, G or Am, Bm, Em.
_________________
Current Tunings:
6 String | G – G B D G B D
7 String | G6 – e G B D G B D (re-entrant)
https://papadafoe.com/lap-steel-tuning-database |
|
|
|
Nic Neufeld
From:
Kansas City, Missouri
|
Posted 13 Feb 2021 1:34 pm
|
|
F for me gets the top spot...very common key for a lot of the music I play, and it lines up nicely for a lot of stuff. Other keys I like in that tuning, C, D, and G...probably in that order.
_________________
Waikīkī, at night when the shadows are falling
I hear the rolling surf calling
Calling and calling to me |
|
|
|
Rob Fenton
From:
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
|
Posted 13 Feb 2021 3:52 pm
|
|
I'm with Nic, F is my go-to.
This is actually a really interesting question. I hadn't really thought much about favourite keys related to a tuning. I have definitely thought about my least favourite keys though...
I also really enjoy playing in Bb.
F and Bb lay out great for chord progressions that include 3-6-2-5 progressions.
I suppose my order of preference would be:
F, Bb, C, A, E, Eb, D, G, B, Ab, Db, Gb
I thought D and G would be closer to the front of my list but I dislike having ideas interrupted by open strings in positions I normally cover with barred notes. I can still use those an octave up, but sometimes I steel myself into a corner down low.
Haven't thought about minor keys yet. Hmmm... |
|
|
|
Stephen Cowell
From:
Round Rock, Texas, USA
|
Posted 13 Feb 2021 4:56 pm
|
|
I like the way the key of Dmaj lies... you get a two-fret box to do all kinds of things... the Vdom7 chord being very close, with one fretted note.
_________________
New FB Page: Lap Steel Licks And Stuff: https://www.facebook.com/groups/195394851800329 |
|
|
|
Nic Neufeld
From:
Kansas City, Missouri
|
Posted 13 Feb 2021 7:25 pm
|
|
| Nic Neufeld wrote: |
| F for me gets the top spot...very common key for a lot of the music I play, and it lines up nicely for a lot of stuff. Other keys I like in that tuning, C, D, and G...probably in that order. |
I guess to flesh out my preferences with a couple extra reasons...F gives you an easy M7 note with the open high E. C and G tend to give a whole lot of natural harmonic options, and open C lets you do cool maj9 things with, say, the 2nd fret on strings 2,3. D has a cool add9 option, again with the open E string.
_________________
Waikīkī, at night when the shadows are falling
I hear the rolling surf calling
Calling and calling to me |
|
|
|
Levi Gemmell
From:
New Zealand
|
Posted 17 Feb 2021 7:12 pm
|
|
Again with Nic and Rob, F is a great key for C6th. I like it in particular because the open C position is home-base for all manner of beautiful, rolling Hawaiian turnarounds with hammer-ons. Jules Ah See's version of He Aloha No Honolulu (EDIT: it is recorded as Hawaiian Vamp, but not to confuse with the Johnny Noble comp.) starts with four turnarounds in F before he gets into the song itself, and that's just a springboard to come up with one's own variations.
Similarly, Eb is great, and it's fun to modulate keys upwards - starting in Eb, then to E, and F - over the course of a song. Eb has a particular tonal signature to me, and as a favoured key for George Kainapau, many of the songs I like the most turn out to be in that key.
Db is great again for the hammer-ons - obviously there are certain standards that are played in that key, eg Steelin' the Blues - but something like Caravan in the key of C makes great use of them too.
As a matter of my preference for Hawaiian music, I also find the range of Db up to F to be the keys in which it is easiest to find the extra harmonics one hears in songs like Whispering Lullaby, or throughout recordings by the Rogers 'ohana, David Keli'i, etc. For example, it is far easier to create what I'm talking about by barring fret 2 and muting fret 9 (key of D), than it is to bar fret 7 and mute fret 14 (same, but key of G).
_________________
Commodore S-8
John Allison S-8
JB Frypan S-8
Sho~Bud LDG SD-10
1966 Fender Super Reverb |
|
|
|
Nic Neufeld
From:
Kansas City, Missouri
|
Posted 18 Feb 2021 6:01 am
|
|
I wonder (specifically for Hawaiian music) if the common keys of F and G and C have more to do with, well, not so much with what is most convenient for us as steel guitarists, but the 'ukulele, and what open position chords a singer with an 'ukulele might be most commonly sticking to. I'm not a terribly experienced 'uke player but it definitely seems to favor those keys maybe a bit more than the ones the Spanish guitar favors, for example. Let's face it, we're all side-men first, soloists second  Just a thought, I don't really know the history, but it seems a possibility.
Eb and Db do indeed have some cool open string options...Db gives you a Maj7 with open 2nd string, and I have an arrangement of I'll Weave a Lei of Stars For You in Eb (that I adapted slightly from a version I saw Alan Akaka play) using that same second string open for a lot of cool interesting chordal stuff.
_________________
Waikīkī, at night when the shadows are falling
I hear the rolling surf calling
Calling and calling to me |
|
|
|
Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
|
Posted 18 Feb 2021 8:09 am
|
|
When I played a T-8 Stringmaster, the key would determine what neck I played the song in.
The necks were tuned basically to an A, E and C tuning. 
Erv |
|
|
|
