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Post new topic What's this About C6 ???????????
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Author Topic:  What's this About C6 ???????????
Ernest Cawby


From:
Lake City, Florida, USA, R.I.P.
Post  Posted 14 Nov 2008 9:04 pm    
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YOU CAN FIND A MAJOR AND E MAJOR CHORD GRIPS on the C 6 neck so you can start there and work up, there are some real nice fills on C6, this was one of the main tunings we used back then, C#min Emin Emaj, and tuned back and forth at dances for different sounds and songs.
When I was 16 and playing dances C6 was a main stay for us, and the crowd liked it.
To me C6 is just full of fun things to do, take Jeff's C6 Workshop and you can play a lot of C6 in just One week. (just 3 hours a week for 1 week and you can have the ABBS you are looking for) lol

ernie
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Ray Montee


From:
Portland, Oregon (deceased)
Post  Posted 15 Nov 2008 11:50 am     About those grips and grabs..........................
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When it comes to C6th tuning, or C6th/A7th, it is acceptable to think OUTSIDE the pedal steel BOX.

Lots of fabulous sounds and harmonies on no more than the first four strings........and much of that being on just the first three strings or the first two strings!

This is a tuning that is just waiting to be discovered by players that have heretofore, only viewed the tuning as a pedal steel player might be expected to see things.

Lots of exciting challenges await the seriously curious, wanna-be musician. WHY so few seem to be up to it, I'll never understand.
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Mike Archer


From:
church hill tn
Post  Posted 15 Nov 2008 12:22 pm     I agree
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Both you fellas are correct 100%

c6th is full off ideas you can play e9th stuff there too just gotta work with it

I think c6th is very interesting
has so much to offer
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Roger Shackelton

 

From:
MINNESOTA (deceased)
Post  Posted 15 Nov 2008 1:32 pm     C-6th TUNING
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Too bad Curly Chalker never quite got the hang of it. Oh Well Laughing

Roger
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David Doggett


From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
Post  Posted 15 Nov 2008 6:32 pm     Re: About those grips and grabs..........................
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Ray Montee wrote:
...WHY so few seem to be up to it, I'll never understand.

Here's why.

I don't think those who begin on E9 pedal steel avoid the other neck because it is C6. If you put D13 or something else on the second neck there would be the same problem.

Pre-E9 players learned a 6- or 8-string no-pedal tuning first. That is much easier than learning 10-string E9 pedal steel first. Then they learned one or two more 6- or 8-string no-pedal tunings, that were similar, just in different keys. One of them might have been C6, or they eventually settled on C6. But it is MUCH easier to go from 6- or 8-string no-pedal A6 to 6- or 8-string C6 than to go from 10-string pedal E9 to 10-string pedal C6. There is simply no comparison.

And if you know no-pedal C6 well, it is fairly easy to move to 10-string pedal C6. So naturally there is no big mystery there for the older players who did that.

But if you start on 10-string pedal E9, that is a very difficult start. It takes most people many years to get comfortable there. And from the beginning you learn that you mostly change chords with the pedals. And with difficulty you learn skip grips to avoid the 7th and 9th strings. And with difficulty you learn how to use those non-intuitive out-of-order "chromatic" strings. It is all very complicated and non-intuitive, and takes a very long time. Many people actually give up.

Then, once somebody has invested all that time and brain work, the idea of starting over again on another very different and equally complicated 10-string pedal neck - you got to be kidding. That is just an entirely different proposition than what happened with the older players, who moved from 8-string no-pedal E9 or A6 and C6 to 8-string pedal E9 (which is the familiar A6 with the pedals down) and 8-string pedal C6 (which is exactly the same if you leave the pedals alone). And those early 8-string pedal steels only had a few pedals, and few or no knee levers. People played for a few years on those before one-by-one adding more pedals and levers and more strings. It was all one small step at a time over many years. That is just so different from starting on say 10-string pedal E9 3&4 and then being asked to switch to 10-string pedal C6 5&2. And now days it is likely 4&5 on E9 and 5&5 on C6.

That's why E9ers today resist learning C6. It is a huge jump from one very complicated pedal neck to another. It is not at all the multi-step simple series of transitions and additions the older guys all went through together over many years.

It is true that embedded in 10-string pedal C6 is the simple 8-string no-pedal C6. But if you ask someone who learned on 10-string pedal E9 to move to a lap 8-string C6, and to play today's music (as opposed to the old music that was written for lap steel), that's not so easy either. It is a whole different concept getting chords by changing grips and root strings, and moving all over the neck, and using slants.

Bottom line - if you already know something, it's easy. If you don't, it's not.
[If Yogi Berra never said that, he should have.]


Last edited by David Doggett on 15 Nov 2008 11:07 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Bob Hickish


From:
Port Ludlow, Washington, USA, R.I.P.
Post  Posted 15 Nov 2008 7:24 pm    
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C6th is all over in E9th -- Its my opinion the fellows that developed what we
use today in the E9th worked it all out from the 6th tunings .

Again IMO --- C6th is just as payable -- and not difficult to learn once you
see the similarities --- It is easier to go to E9th from C6th . the old timers
playing non-ped 6th tunings could adapt quite well to pedals .

Hick
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Dave A. Burley

 

From:
Franklin, In. USA
Post  Posted 16 Nov 2008 12:26 am     Steel C6th Neck
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I will never forget the first time I tried a real four legged steel guitar. I knew a little Hawiian stuff on the lap steel but nothing country. This steel didn't have any pedals and the only thing I knew about the steel is what I had heard on the recordings. Now listen...I am old and there was no video's or the such back then. I started tinkering with this 8 string monster and invented a new tuning. Boy, was it ever hot. I started playing jazz chords on this baby and was thinking that if I ever got the opportunity to play in front of some of those hot shot early pedal steel guitarists from Nashville, boy would I show them a thing or two. I had never heard the C6th tuning played before and low and behold, I thought that I had invented it. I moved to Nashville the same year Buddy recorded the Black Album and boy did I learn a thing or ten......I've still got egg on my face when I think how smart I thought I was and how dumb I really was.
I would put some smiles here but I don't know how to do that...Smile anyway.
Dave A. Burley
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