James Quillian wrote:A lot of blues is played with the idea that every note should played with as much intensity as is possible. That works real well tuned to an open chord.
I belong to another camp that prefers blues that is played at an optimum intensity. I have found some but not of lot of blues played with C6. I conjecture that C6 will actually be the best tuning for playing blues when the goal is to get an optimum rather maximum intensity. (Lets say just cooking rather than totally exploding on every note.)
I am giving it a try. Before picking up the lap steel, I had already pick the tuning based on what I had heard.
I would guess that your maximum intensity vs optimum intensity idea is related to the dynamics of the playing, going from soft to loud and mellow to intense. Is that what you are talking about?
As for open chords, most tunings are open chords; what differs is which chord is used along with its complexity. Triads are the simplest, used in open E or bottleneck tunings and in the G or A dobro tunings. With triads the intervals between strings are much more limited than something like a C6th which adds the major 6th tone. Slants will increase the number of intervals available with triads, but they are even more intervals available when using slants on a major 6th tuning.
C6th has been used for some very tasty blues playing, like on some of the Hank Williams recordings (when he wasn't using Don Helms). But I prefer E9th myself, because it more complex harmonically and it handles dominant and minor chords very well (which covers perhaps 90%+ of blues songs).
I find C6 to be much more useful when I am playing songs that involve major scales to some extent. (The major 6th note is very neutral in the sense that it can be used in major, minor and dominant chords. The flatted 7th note limits you to dominant, minor and half-diminished chords, ruling out the major scale.) Of course with any tuning you can play more complex chords and additional scales by using slants and moving from the
I position.
One thing I like about the E9th tuning is that you
must move from the
I position to get the middle root note (like the middle E in E9th). But it is mainly all of the different intervals available from the straight positions that I like the most. The tritone is very important in blues and you don't get that from a straight position with C6th.
I usually suggest that people try out different tunings to see which one(s) they can relate to the best. It might depend on how our brains are wired but some tunings seem to work better for some people. For me E9th works best for me for blues and rock material- although a year ago I could not imagine playing a tuning that did not have that middle (or lower) root. FWIW right now I actually prefer 6 string E9th to 8 string for blues because being limited to 6 strings forces me to go to other positions.
E9th:
E-B-G#-F#-D-B-(G#)-(E)
Steve Ahola
on my 6 string ones. If I need to play a B11 song, I lower the middle G to an F#, and it becomes a Eb11. I do How'd Ya Do in the key of C, Sand in E, etc. I only do this if I don't have my double 8 Stringmaster with me and someone requests one of the songs I do on the B11 tuning.