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Topic: David Lindley's 7-string tunings |
Charlie Campbell
From:
California, USA
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Posted 21 Sep 2023 7:46 pm |
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David Lindley had both a 7-string Rickenbacker and a 7-string Weissenborn. Does anyone know how they were tuned?
It sounds to me that the 7th string of the Weissenborn, which he used to accompany himself, was used to provide a bass note and was likely tuned an octave below the root, but I can't tell for sure.
Thanks |
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Allan Revich
From:
Victoria, BC
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Posted 5 Oct 2023 3:50 pm
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My understanding is that he played pretty much exclusively 1 5 1 3 5 1 tunings, mostly tuned D E and F. It would make sense that if he wanted to keep a guitar tuned up to G, that he might put a low G on string 7, for G G D G B D G, or maybe a low D for D G D G B D G.
It would be nice to hear from someone who knows though. 
_________________
Current Tunings:
6 String | G – G B D G B D
7 String | G6 – G B D E G B D
https://papadafoe.com/lap-steel-tuning-database |
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Charlie Campbell
From:
California, USA
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Posted 8 Oct 2023 6:47 am Early attempts
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| As a followup Ihave been playing witht he notion of adding a bass string as Lindley did with his 7-string Weissenborn. I was able to fit a 0.090 in to my Rickenbacker. This may be reasonabley tuned down to a low G but no further. |
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Allan Revich
From:
Victoria, BC
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Posted 4 Jun 2024 12:53 pm Bump
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| Bumped this thread. Surely someone here must know how he tuned his 7 strings? |
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Daniel Flanigan
From:
Oregon, USA
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Posted 7 Jun 2024 4:54 pm
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David played exclusively 151351 tunings, but usually tuned up very high. The tunings he used the most with Jackson were F, high-bass G and A, all 151351. A few popular songs you'd know with these tunings would be 'These Days' (F), 'The Load Out/Stay' (High G) and of course the ever popular 'Running On Empty' (A). Most of the time, he only had three guitars with him during live shows; a National tuned to F, a 7-string Rick tuned to High G with an extra D (I think) in the bass and a 6-string Rick tuned to A. It's very easy to identify which tuning he used on any song.
What I've always done is just listen to the albums very closely, and listen for the open strings to figure out what the tuning is. Many years ago I identified the tunings he used on every song from every Jackson Browne album he played on. I can't ever remember him using open D or low bass G with Jackson Browne. He used open E only occasionally. In the past I've transcribed all of his steel parts from every song on the albums 'For Everyman', 'Late For The Sky', 'The Pretender', 'Running On Empty' and 'Hold Out' and the majority of it was played with F, High G and A.
Back when I only had one lap steel, I used to keep it tuned to Open E, and used a Jeff Newman capo, which was a polished steel round bar that you slide under the strings, to go up to F, High G and A so I could play any David Lindley part with just the one guitar. However, it is certainly preferable to actually tune up to the high tunings. The real high tunings are a big part of the Lindley sound that many people overlook. It does require pretty light strings for those tunings. I use regular guitar strings just like David did, and I use 10-46 for High G and 8-38 for Open A.
_________________
I'm waitin' for the pardon that'll set me free,
But this ain't the movies, so forget about me. |
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Allan Revich
From:
Victoria, BC
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Posted 7 Jun 2024 9:16 pm
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| Daniel Flanigan wrote: |
David played exclusively 151351 tunings, but usually tuned up very high. The tunings he used the most with Jackson were F, high-bass G and A, all 151351. A few popular songs you'd know with these tunings would be 'These Days' (F), 'The Load Out/Stay' (High G) and of course the ever popular 'Running On Empty' (A). Most of the time, he only had three guitars with him during live shows; a National tuned to F, a 7-string Rick tuned to High G with an extra D (I think) in the bass and a 6-string Rick tuned to A. It's very easy to identify which tuning he used on any song.
What I've always done is just listen to the albums very closely, and listen for the open strings to figure out what the tuning is. Many years ago I identified the tunings he used on every song from every Jackson Browne album he played on. I can't ever remember him using open D or low bass G with Jackson Browne. He used open E only occasionally. In the past I've transcribed all of his steel parts from every song on the albums 'For Everyman', 'Late For The Sky', 'The Pretender', 'Running On Empty' and 'Hold Out' and the majority of it was played with F, High G and A.
Back when I only had one lap steel, I used to keep it tuned to Open E, and used a Jeff Newman capo, which was a polished steel round bar that you slide under the strings, to go up to F, High G and A so I could play any David Lindley part with just the one guitar. However, it is certainly preferable to actually tune up to the high tunings. The real high tunings are a big part of the Lindley sound that many people overlook. It does require pretty light strings for those tunings. I use regular guitar strings just like David did, and I use 10-46 for High G and 8-38 for Open A. |
Thanks for that! I think most of us here knew about his preference for 151351 in multiple keys, but maybe not so much about his 7 string tuning. Adding the D to such a high G tuning makes a lot of sense. I guess it would be DGDGBDG then. |
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Daniel Flanigan
From:
Oregon, USA
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Posted 8 Jun 2024 1:33 pm
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Yessir, I believe the D in the bass is the most likely, although it's possible he put a another G an octave below the 6th string, since David played octaves quite a lot, far more than most lap steel players. Come to think of it, such a setup would give you a pretty neat a triple-octave played on strings 7, 6 and 4, which would certainly have a Lindley sound to it.
It would be worth trying both the D and the lower octave G for the 7th string and seeing which works better for you. It would also be worth trying 7-string Open A, with either an E or a lower octave A in the bass. I wish I could think of an instance where David clearly played the 7th string, but I don't think he used the 7th string all that much. I've never come across one of his steel parts that required the 7th string to play. I've seen live footage of him playing the 7-string Rick, but usually he just had the National and two 6-string Ricks with him.
_________________
I'm waitin' for the pardon that'll set me free,
But this ain't the movies, so forget about me. |
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