UNIVERSAL E9-B6-Bb6 B6/E9

[David Doggett]

Well, it wouldn't hurt to pay a little attention to semantics. The object is not to pass any judgment on what is acceptable or "better," but just to communicate more clearly, and to keep the discussions focused and useful to standard E9/B6 universal players. I don’t mean to be exclusionary, but I would be most interested in a group that takes E9/B6 (or something with the same string order, such as Bb6/Eb9) as a given. So the discussions would revolve around what can be done with it, rather than what other alternatives there are.

It seems the original idea of a "universal" was not just any 12-string tuning, but one which had almost all of both E9 and B6 intact, compared to standard 10-string E9 and C6. This was to accommodate experienced players switching from standard D10, and to utilize the standard repertoire of chords, phrases, licks, songs, tab and instruction. In other words, to encompass and merge the old worlds of E9 and C6 into one tuning.

In that sense, I would favor reserving the term "universal" for the standard E9/B6 version that really maintains those two tunings intact in the string order. Inserting a D or C# string in the bottom of B6 substantially alters it from standard C6.

12-string tunings that keep the D string (and F#) are rightly called extended E9. And I would call Jerry Hayes tuning extended E6.

The word "universal" can of course mean anything. So it is a little artificial to try to restrict it to just E9/B6. But that is the traditional use of the term among players and manufacturers. And if people don't want to restrict the term to E9/B6, then maybe we should use "E9/B6" for this group instead of "universal," or start another group for that. The point being that these discussions will be more useful to us E9/B6 players if they are more or less restricted to E9/B6. It would really dilute the discussions to branch off into extended E9 and other 12-string tunings, just as we don't really need any D10 players horning in to explain why they prefer D10. There have been many discussions of that in the past. And they don't go anywhere. It would be nice if this group was just players who are dedicated to E9/B6, and want to share what can be done with it. I would think extended E9 or E6 or whatever players would like to have such a group for their own tuning.

[David Doggett]

On the old Forum there was a really good discussion of the history of the E9/B6 universal. Paul Franklin, Jr. (who has stuck with D10) gave his memories. As I remember (which is very shaky ground these days), the consensus seemed to be that the closest thing to what we now call E9/B6 universal was developed by Jeff Newman, and that he and Reece Anderson (Bb6/Eb9) popularized the tuning and showed that you could get both E9 and C6 type stuff with the one neck. If anyone can find that thread, pleas post the link.

[Fred Glave]

I don't know why I never asked this question before, but why isn't the 9 the string on a U12 a D? Afterall, when the Es are NOT lowered, it's E9, but if you could simoultaneously raise #9 D to a B when lowering the Es wouldn't that solve the problem? I know that when playing B6th you may want to lower, or raise the Bs a half step occasionally, but is that really a problem? I'm only mechanically inclined to a certain point, then you've got to educate me.

[Ivan Funk]

Fred asked: why isn't the 9 the string on a U12 a D?

My understanding is that the most simple answer to this question is:
to keep the "inside 6" of each tuning intact.
I could be wrong.
Two things that improved my playing were 1. when my volume pedal broke and I just played without it for a few weeks. And 2. stringing up one lap steel to match the inside 6 of the B6 tuning and another - the inside 6 of the E9 tuning playing them a good amount. For those of us that didn't come up through the channels of the Hawaiian or Jerry Bird or blues lap steel channels (among other styles) this can help us understand why it is the way it is as well as really teach us how to understand and play melodies in the most direct way.
Hopefully someone will follow this up with a more technical answer. I think it's a good question.

[Dennis Wood]

Count me in! I would like to see more discussion on the uni e9/b6. Maybe share b6 licks,sound files and tab. I started playing steel with a little help from my friend Bill Stroud of BJS bars fame, who pointed me in the direction of u12, and never looked back. Bill found me my first guitar, a Serria u12 with 9&6(he was the previous owner, i believe). I still have it and is my main guitar. I also have an LDG that i don't play very often because of lack of the low notes and big chords. I might even consider a trade for another u12 if it were the right guitar.

[Ron Randall]

Count me in!

I've been playing a S12 Uni Bb6/Eb9 with 8 & 5 for several years. I have always thought of it as a single tuning, as I started on C6 no pedals years ago. I can play plenty country licks and big lush chords. I am told I am not commercial enough, and need to change to E9.

I think I want to change (re-rod) the guitar to E9/B6. My thinking is that there is more instructional material for E9 available, without me needing to transpose with my slow brain.

I am also considering tuning it up a half-step to B6/E9, changing gauges as needed, so I can more easily read E9 tab.

Any way, count me in.

[Michael Johnstone]

Yeah I play a 12 string E9/B6 uni. I switched to that format in 1993 after 20 years on a D-10. The only non-standard string I have is that I tune my open 2nd string to C# and raise it to D# with a half-stop at D. Presently I play a single wide keyless Excel Superb w/8+9 and vascillate between a Tonealigner and a TrueTone 17.5 as the mood strikes me. That tuning on that guitar represents the best of all worlds to me.

[David Doggett]

Fred, Ivan mostly answered your question, but didn't go quite far enough. It's not just the inside 6 of each neck that the E9/B6 uni preserves. The top 8 strings are identical with E9, and that's where the meat of E9 is. And the 9th string and a lever for the D complete it. So from the top down, you can ignore the extra bottom strings and play a uni just like standard E9.

Compared to C6 the bottom 9 strings of a uni are identical, and that's where the meat of C6 is. C6 (and B6) are close interval tunings, and you don't have to skip strings the way you do on E9. That is part of the beauty and simplicity and lap-steel-like nature of the standard 6th tuning. Putting an extra string in the middle of that would mess all that up.

So you get the top 90% of E9, and the bottom 90% of C6 - exactly. The little you would gain putting a D string in the E9 instead of on a lever would not make up for the loss of the exact C6 intervals that would be screwed up. And worse, to get that D string for E9, you would have to lose a bottom string of B6, a catastrophe.

The beauty of E9/B6 is that by merely shifting the one D string of E9 to a lever, and using the E-lower lever, you get the whole intact 6th tuning. It is really quite amazing that you can get the most important 90% of each of the classic tunings at your fingertips at all times, merely by toggling a single lever.

Having said that, I would like to return to my previous point. I'm just one guy, but I would not like to see this be just another of many threads on the comparative advantages and disadvantages of D10, ext. E9, E9/B6 uni, or some other type of uni. There have been countless threads on that. What would really interest me is an ongoing discussion among those who have settled on E9/B6 and want to know, "Okay, now that we have chosen this tuning, what can we do with it." There really has never been such a discussion.

[Richard Tasso]

Count me in.

A Newbie- playing an Excel u-12

[David Doggett]

To really make this work, we need to be able to post sound clips. I've got a little digital recorder (Zoom H4). But I need to get a file host where I can store some clips that I can link to here. Anybody got suggestions for user friendly, reliable and cheap file hosts?

[David Doggett]

Okay, here’s a little lesson about an amazing pentatonic minor position you can get across all 12 strings of a uni. It is so simple, we don't even need sound clips. All you have to do is hold the A pedal down. That gives a C#m chord that looks like this:

F#/G/G#
D#
G#
E
C#/B
G#
F#/G/G#
E
C#/B
G#
E
C#/B

The slashes mean you can toggle between C# and B with the A pedal. With my LKV, I can also toggle between F#, G and G#.

Most of us aren’t very familiar with the key of C#m. From the standpoint of simple music theory, I can understand it easier transposed to a C pentatonic minor scale. That looks like this (at the 11th fret):

F/Gb/G
D
G
Eb
C/Bb
G
F/Gb/G
Eb
C/Bb
G
Eb
C/Bb

Notice all the flat 3rds, 5ths and 7ths. In intervals it looks like this:

4/5b/5
2
5
3b
1/7b
5
4/5b/5
3b
1/7b
5
3b
1/7b

That is 3 octaves of a pentatonic minor scale, with a low root on string 12 that doesn’t exist on D10 or ext. E9. My root grip for this position is the low power chord on strings 9, 10 and 12. Put that at the 3rd fret for E pentatonic minor rock, blues and jazz, or at the 8th fret for A pentatonic minor. You can also think of this as a Dorian mode position, if you are into jazz modes.

Drop down 1 fret and add the B pedal for the V chord. With my LKV I can make that a V7. And of course, two frets further down is IV. Or if you want to go in the other direction, from the root minor position, let off the A pedal and go up two frets for IV, two more for V. At the root minor position, let off the A pedal for the relative major. Or hit the BC pedals for IVm, or drop down two frets and hit the E-lower lever for IVm. From the root minor position, drop down two frets and add the F lever for the VIIb chord, which in blues, rock and jazz sounds good leading into the root minor chord, especially using the power chord grip on strings 9, 10 and 12. So this position is a nice box with lots of useful chords close by.

It gets better. You can see that this A pedal minor position is 3 octaves of stacked 1 3b 5 intervals. Well, it turns out that this is the same as stacked 3 5 7 intervals of a Maj7 chord. To be exact, that is the VImaj7 of the minor key, or IVmaj7 of the relative major key. In jazz, that Maj7 inversion is a movable chord. So this is 3 stacked octaves of any inversion you want of a movable Maj7 chord.

It sounds complicated on paper. But if you just play around with this position and the A and B pedals, and nearby frets, you will find tons of useful stuff for pentatonic minor rock and blues, and Dorian modal jazz. I don’t think in those theory terms. I just find the sounds, and have to think backwards to be able to describe the theory on paper.

Of course, you can get a lot of this on 10-string E9 or ext. E9. But you are missing the low power chord, which to me is the main grip to start out on and keep coming back to.

[Hans Holzherr]

Count me in!

It would also be interesting to know how many are in the sub-group that have their pedal 6 change on a knee lever (8th string E to D) as I do.

Hans

[Frank Welsh]

I'm in. I play a Carter S12 Universal (black, of course) and enjoy blending the advantages of E9th and B6th into my interpretations of all kinds of tunes.

I would like to hear about other members' experience with footwork that requires moving quite a distance to go quickly from pedals 1 through 3 to way over on the other end to slip in some unexpected jazzy sounds without looking at their foot. I still have some trouble with this.

[Tom Campbell]

I would like to know if anyone has changed the order of their top three strings. The order of my top three strings are:

1. C#
2. G#
3. F#

From string 4-12 I have kept the standerd U12 tuning.
I got the idea from Pete Burak a few years ago and really like it. I don't know if he still uses it.

[Fred Glave]

So David and Ivan; When playing in E9 mode, do you, or do you know of players that keep the 9th B pulled up to D, or at least keep it there a lot? When I raise my 9th on my Sierra, I'm also lowering #2 D# to D.

[Jerry Hayes]

I'm still calling my tuning an E9/B6 Universal because that's exactly what it is! It is also the same as an extended E9th with the 2nd and 9th strings tuned to C# and both are raised to D on LKR.

Being primarily a guitar player before I got "serious?" on steel, this makes more sense to me as I can play a lot of guitar things not possible on a "standard" Uni. One being the intro to Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman". Any ext.E9 player can do it in the open position with no pedals and only one hand (the right). Out of the normal B6th you'd have to raise the B to D or lower the E to D, or use the bar.

I changed to this after "missing" some of the E9 things with the Uni. One was when raising the B to D you'd loose the B or C# note that you had for quick scale work in the lower register.

With the C# on string 9, you have the same as a C6th with a D note in slot 7 as some players are doing. In B6th it's the same function as the F# on string 7 in E9th.

As far as losing the low B string, I don't miss it at all, I have a form of "BooWah" by lowering string 12, E to C#..........JH in Va.

[Ivan Funk]

Thank you David for expounding.

Fred wrote:

do you / keep the 9th B pulled up to D?

No I don't hold it there.
My brain just tells my leg to move when I feel a D coming on usually without much conscience thought.

I have that change (string 9, B raised to D) on my RKL and it also lowers the 2nd string from D# to C# with a half/stop at D.
With the tension created by that big 9th string raise it's not something I want to be holding up continuously for fear of pulling a muscle. (just kidding)
The only thing lacking with this whole "D" issue in my opinion is that if you want to do a faster chromatic run down there you can't avoid the "bend" sound between the B and D notes. As much as that sound is part of the magic of the pedal steel, I usually don't want to hear it right there. Oh well.

edited to add: Basically I just repeated what Jerry said right above me regarding scales.

sincerely,
The Head Of The Department Of Redundancy Department.

I think b0b (among many others) has a lot of good stuff to say about this on other U12 threads.

[Pete Burak]

Tom,
Yes, I still run my first three strings like that, although string 1 is a D# (goes to C# when in B6th).
Pete B.

[Mike Perlowin]

Raising the 9th string or lowering the 8th?

I lower the 8th. What does everybody else do?

[David Doggett]

When I moved to a uni, I made a decision to keep the E9 and B6 parts as close to standard E9 and C6 as possible. Those are tried and true tunings. Going to a uni is strange enough without trying to reinvent those. I want to be able to keep in touch with the traditional D10 community and its lore, and all the tabs and instruction materials (which admittedly I don't use much).

I get the D by lowering my 8th string E with LKR. This does double duty in B6 mode analogous to pedal 6 of C6. In E9 I actually like the bend, and also like being able to toggle between the D and E without dissonance or blocking. In B6, that D change is the most used change in swing (and the rockabilly I often play). It gives the IV9, which is used similar to the AB pedal change in E9. Therefore, I can get the most used change in B6 without moving over to the B6 pedals. Playing B6 like a lap steel with just that one change gives you tons of stuff.

However, when you move your left leg out of the E9 cluster over to the B6 pedals, you lose that essential change. The second uni I got, in addition to having that change on LKR, had it on the traditional pedal 6. So when I go there I have the standard 6th neck pedal arrangement, except that the boo-wah replaces pedal 4.

One thing I gave up in E9 is the Bb change on string 5. I have so many other ways to get minors, I don't feel it is essential. In place of that, on LKV I raise strings 1 and 7 to G#, with a feel stop at G. This gives me the 7b and Maj7 with the A and B pedals, and the 5b and unison 5 with the A pedal minor position. I play lots of blues, rock and blues-based jazz, and those changes are essential to me for all that.

I have the Franklin pedal in the zero pedal position (G# on string 1, E on strings 2 and 7). I sometimes use that for fast and furious slide-guitar blues stuff without worrying about skipping strings. It puts every string on the neck in the E chord, so you can't hit a wrong string.

On my E-lower pedal, I lower string 2 to C#. This gives me a useful scale note with the minor chord, and gives me a 2 note in B6 (the equivalent of a D on top on C6). So in B6 I have the equivalent of both the D and G on top on C6. That solves a major bone of contention among 10-string C6 players.

I confess, I really don't use the B6 pedals much. With the equivalent of pedal 6 in the E9 cluster, when you play from that position as one big tuning, with all the E9 stuff there, and the 3 extra low strings, you really don't need the other B6 pedals as much as you would on a neck that can only play C6. For the moment I prefer the one big tuning approach to switching my left leg between E9 and B6.

[John De Maille]

I've been playing the Jeff Newman version of the universal tuning for 3 yrs now, and I love it. I'd like to hear some other ideas about using this tuning. I'm still a novice when it comes to using the 6th side, eventho, I venture a lot using pedals 4,5,6,& 7 plus the lowered B with an up knee lever.

[David Munson]

Count me in! I have a 2007 U12 Excel with the new see saw lock. Yes the superb with 7 raise 5 lower


David Munson
St. Louis

[Mike Perlowin]

I get the D by lowering my 8th string E with LKR. This does double duty in B6 mode analogous to pedal 6 of C6. In E9 I actually like the bend, and also like being able to toggle between the D and E without dissonance or blocking.

However, when you move your left leg out of the E9 cluster over to the B6 pedals, you lose that essential change.

One thing I gave up in E9 is the Bb change on string 5. I have so many other ways to get minors, I don't feel it is essential.

Like David, I lower the 8th, and I have the same feelings about this that he does. But unlike David, I have the change on my RKR, and my E to Eb lower is on my LKR, so when I want to make the chord on the B6 side of the tuning, I merely release the LKR while engaging the RKR, thereby eliminating the need for the B6 C pedal.

Where I disagree with David is the B to Bb lower on the 5th string on the E9 side of the tuning. I consider this change essential. Turning the pedals down IV chord into a minor is only one of the many uses it has. (Try engaging it with the E to F raise while playing around with strings 4 ad 5, and then move the bar back 2 frets and release the B-Bb change and add the A pedal, while retaining the E to F raise, and see what happens. This is just one of many things I do with this change)

I find the B to Bb change so useful on both the E9 and B6, that I put it on a wrist lever, because there there was no other place to put it on my guitar where it was physically accessible in every pedal and knee position where it was musically valuable.

[Joe McHam]

Thank you all for the responses on this thread.. Thanks to Dave and Mike for their Uni analysis... Keep it coming guys.. you both have a ton of knowledge to share.. Please pass the word to other Uni players..

[Ernie Pollock]

Joe, Still 'torturing' this old MSA S-12U, everyday. It don't have to be new to be good!!

Ernie