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Topic: C6 Tuning on 6 String, Bar Slants? |
W. Johnson
From:
Oregon, USA
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Posted 11 Jun 2014 9:01 am |
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Lately, (as in the last week or so), I've been playing my 6 string lap steel in the C6 tuning. The more I use this tuning, the more I like it. I'm kind of baffled as to why anyone would think this tuning is 'dated'? Maybe there is a better tuning?
(Prior to using the C6 tuning, I have been playing my lap steel that has several palm levers to obtain various chords.)
I'm using the tuning: C - E - G - A - C - E. Because my fingers have arthritis in them, I have to play with a flat pick.
Anyway, I'm wondering about bar slants, and the various chords that can be obtained. In particular, what is a good way to get a dominant 7th chord, or M7 chord?
W. Johnson
_________________
I am on Facebook as Innovative Guitars. Photos of all my work in photo album. I no longer make lap steels, but still make tone bars. |
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Dave Broyles
From:
Olympia,WA USA
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Posted 11 Jun 2014 9:45 am
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| A very common variation of the C6 tuning is C6/A7, achieved by tuning your low C to C# (C#,E,G,A,C,E). This gives you the dominate chords on the lower 4 strings. |
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W. Johnson
From:
Oregon, USA
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Posted 11 Jun 2014 9:48 am
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| Dave Broyles wrote: |
| A very common variation of the C6 tuning is C6/A7, achieved by tuning your low C to C# (C#,E,G,A,C,E). This gives you the dominate chords on the lower 4 strings. |
This looks interesting, I'll try it out.
Thanks,
Wayne
_________________
I am on Facebook as Innovative Guitars. Photos of all my work in photo album. I no longer make lap steels, but still make tone bars. |
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Greg Moynihan
From:
Bremerton, Washington, USA
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Posted 11 Jun 2014 12:31 pm
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I like the sound of playing the third on the low E string and the minor 7th on the A string with a forward slant, for example, as a partial C7:
x
x
13
x
12
x
Then, you can do this nifty harmonic shortcut by shifting both notes one fret lower, which gives you an inversion of F7:
x
x
12
x
11
x
Also, if you have a round-nose bar, you can wedge the curve between the A and the high C string. If the size of the bar agrees with your string spacing, then, with practice, this will sound three notes in an F7:
x
12
12
x
11
x
And, finally, G7 can be obtained by moving this chord two frets higher:
x
14
14
x
13
x
Hope this helps! |
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Edward Meisse
From:
Santa Rosa, California, USA
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Posted 11 Jun 2014 1:24 pm
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There are several books for 6 string C6 lap steel for sale here on the forum. Any one of them would be very helpful. I'm familiar with the De Witt Scott book. So I can recommend that outright.
_________________
Amor vincit omnia |
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Joe Burke
From:
Toronto, Canada
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Posted 11 Jun 2014 6:41 pm
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| Thanks Greg! I've recently started playing C6 (moving from G). Playing slant chords is what makes playing steel great. |
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W. Johnson
From:
Oregon, USA
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Posted 11 Jun 2014 8:00 pm
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Thanks guys for the help. I'll try some of the bar slants out. I'll also check out the book(s).
Wayne
_________________
I am on Facebook as Innovative Guitars. Photos of all my work in photo album. I no longer make lap steels, but still make tone bars. |
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Michael James
From:
La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA
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Posted 11 Jun 2014 10:42 pm
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I use the Cma11 tuning. CEGBDF - Low to High. This tuning has a lot of slant options.
Last edited by Michael James on 19 Nov 2014 10:11 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Posted 12 Jun 2014 4:27 am
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Some super cool and useful slants for a Dom 7 chord with the 7th and root on the 1st string:
| Tab: |
---6-------------8-----------
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---7-------------7---------
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---8-------------6---------
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These are both C7 chords. They are also very easy to play.
_________________
Links to streaming music, websites, YouTube: Links |
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Greg Moynihan
From:
Bremerton, Washington, USA
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Posted 12 Jun 2014 4:13 pm
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| Mr. Neer -- Those slants are so completely awesome, thank you sir! |
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W. Johnson
From:
Oregon, USA
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Posted 12 Jun 2014 7:45 pm
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I watched your videos, very informative and you explain it well. I also am looking at the PDF files. All good stuff. I will have to tune one of my guitars to this tuning and experiment with it.
_________________
I am on Facebook as Innovative Guitars. Photos of all my work in photo album. I no longer make lap steels, but still make tone bars. |
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Michael James
From:
La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA
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Stanislav Paskalev
From:
Bulgaria
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Posted 22 Jan 2025 11:49 pm
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I've been learning Cma11 for a couple of days on a 6-string and I'm having a blast with it. As the videos and pdfs linked in this thread seem to be gone I did my own charts. I also scored an 8 string on Ebay so I thought a bit how could I extend the Cma11 to 8 strings. Adding an A seemed like a natural choice to become fully diatonic and putting one between the G and B gives two instances of a major second, an interval that is tricky to use on 6-string Cma11 (e.g. must do a reverse slant over 4 frets for a sus2 chord). And adding one to the bottom in the alternating pattern of thirds extends the range and allows for a few more harmonic options without too much movement. The diagram bellow shows (low to high) A-C-E-G-A-B-D-F / (high to low) F-D-B-A-G-E-C-A.
There are some really neat things happening in music theory terms here. Each fret position corresponds to a particular diatonic key signature. Open is C/Am. Fifth is F/Dm. Seventh is G/Em. That follows for each. There's a full minor pentatonic scale across each fret too which should be practical for typical guitar stuff too.
| Code: |
||-----------------------------------------------------------|
|| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
||-----------------------------------------------------------|
F || F# | G | G# | A | A# | B | C | C# | D | D# | E | F |
D || D# | E | F | F# | G | G# | A | A# | B | C | C# | D |
B || C | C# | D | D# | E | F | F# | G | G# | A | A# | B |
A || A# | B | C | C# | D | D# | E | F | F# | G | G# | A |
G || G# | A | A# | B | C | C# | D | D# | E | F | F# | G |
E || F | F# | G | G# | A | A# | B | C | C# | D | D# | E |
C || C# | D | D# | E | F | F# | G | G# | A | A# | B | C |
A || A# | B | C | C# | D | D# | E | F | F# | G | G# | A |
||-----------------------------------------------------------|
|| * * * * * |
||-----------------------------------------------------------|
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I'm eager to get more into it and I plan on posting chord charts here about the 6 and 8 variants, although the 8 one really speaks for itself once laid out on the fretboard. |
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Stanislav Paskalev
From:
Bulgaria
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Posted 23 Jan 2025 12:12 am
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| This was supposed to go in the big Cma11 thread but I've misplaced it here. Can a moderator move it over please? |
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Gregory LeBlanc
From:
New England, USA
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Posted 23 Jan 2025 10:48 am
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| Dave Broyles wrote: |
| A very common variation of the C6 tuning is C6/A7, achieved by tuning your low C to C# (C#,E,G,A,C,E). This gives you the dominate chords on the lower 4 strings. |
I was using this tuning often, but Mike suggested (albeit not directly) that I learn to play diminished with a slant and have largely moved away from it. I have been finding that having the major chord on the bottom (and everything related to the 1/3/5 on the bottom three strings) is generally more useful and if you are willing to practice slants more are opened by the straight C6 tuning than C6/A7. However, should a tuning lean into A7 it's only a small twist of the knob away.
Regarding the dominate chord specifically, I haven't encountered too many places I feel the need to play enough of the full chord on lap steel to miss it. C6 is a fantastic tuning and I'm kinda feeling like if I had taken the time earlier to just memorize the fretboard and notes of each chord/scale sooner (still working on it), I would have been happy using partials that fit the moment in the song, rather than always looking for the full chord.
Anyways... just a bit of my recent experience. (Which hilariously has also just dropped me more into playing in high bass G with an interest of experimenting in a hybrid high to low of DBGEDG). |
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