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Topic: Tuning Pedal Steel like a Regular Guitar |
Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 17 Jan 2014 11:26 am |
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Has anyone ever tried tuning a pedal steel like a regular guitar E A D G B E?
The current E9 tuning came direct from the open E tuning used by blues guitarists when playing with a tone bar or bottle slide.
The regular guitar tuning evolved over the years because there were so many easily-available chords within three frets. But three frets is about the limitation of a pedal steel action. You could set the pedals up to emulate E A C D G Amin. Then F becomes E barred on 1st, B is A barred on 2nd,
Admittedly, most of the time you would have a pedal pressed down, since open G13 is not a chord used very often intentionally. The easiest key to play it would be E. Then you could rock your foot over from pedal 1 to 2 to get A and up two frets to get B.
To non-steel players the tuning would be immediately natural to them.
As an aside, I have a lap steel fitted with a Hipshot Trilogy, tuned to regular guitar tuning. With just the flip of a few levers I can emulate any of the open guitar tunings, and keeping in tune with the other instruments is easy since you tune your lap steel directly to your regular guitar. |
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David Mason
From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
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Posted 17 Jan 2014 1:29 pm
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I have a Hipshot too, but I use the tuning they recommend from pg. 3 of their instruction:
http://www.hipshotproducts.com/files/all/faq443feb346780c.pdf
If you have it in standard to start, you can't get to all those tunings. But that Table A is sort of in-between all of the other ones. |
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Dave Hopping
From:
Aurora, Colorado
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Posted 17 Jan 2014 1:30 pm
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| Didn't Duane Allman play six-string slide in EADGBE? |
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Marke Burgstahler
From:
SF Bay Area, CA
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Posted 17 Jan 2014 3:14 pm
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| Dave Hopping wrote: |
| Didn't Duane Allman play six-string slide in EADGBE? |
Duane did most of his work in open E.
There were several notable exceptions - He was recording "Dreams" in standard tuning, and when it came time for his solo he made a split second decision and reached over and picked up his slide - hence the solo is in standard tuning.
_________________
"It Don't Mean A Thing If It Aint' Got That Swing" |
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 17 Jan 2014 3:34 pm
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| ...but I'm not talking about slide guitar. In fact I mentioned the Hipshot Trilogy just in passing. I'm talking about a full-featured pedal steel guitar tuned to G13. |
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b0b
From:
Cloverdale, CA, USA
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Posted 17 Jan 2014 4:01 pm Re: Tuning Pedal Steel like a Regular Guitar
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| Alan Brookes wrote: |
| The current E9 tuning came direct from the open E tuning used by blues guitarists when playing with a tone bar or bottle slide. |
That's not true. It came from the 8 string E9 used by western swing players: E G# B D F# G# B E
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-𝕓𝕆𝕓- (admin) - Robert P. Lee - Recordings - Breathe - D6th - Video |
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Earnest Bovine
From:
Los Angeles CA USA
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Posted 17 Jan 2014 4:12 pm
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| When I met Tom Morrell in Dallas in 1974 he had EADGBE on the middle 6 strings of a 12 string MSA pedal steel. The other 6 strings were various intermediate pitches (multiply re-entrant). It made sense for his single note soloing in that he knew where all the notes were, and he used a little lightweight bar. |
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