question about tunings

Lap steels, resonators, multi-neck consoles and acoustic steel guitars

Moderator: Brad Bechtel

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Jac Rosenberg
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Joined: 5 Feb 2000 1:01 am
Location: Pittman, Nevada

question about tunings

Post by Jac Rosenberg »

is there any fairly easy way (other than buying sheet music) for us non-pro lap steelers to figure out tunings? i'm a beginner and find the tuning task a bit daunting.

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Brad Bechtel
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Post by Brad Bechtel »

I have a good number of tunings on my web site. Are you looking for guidance in using a particular tuning for a particular song?


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Brad's Page of Steel:
www.well.com/~wellvis/steel.html
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars
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Jac Rosenberg
Posts: 24
Joined: 5 Feb 2000 1:01 am
Location: Pittman, Nevada

Post by Jac Rosenberg »

i'll check your site. nothing particular. but after reading several posts on this bb, i've noticed there are countless tunings. and when i've read interviews with players, each song will have its own tuning. so i was wondering about, hawaiian, or country, etc.

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Brad Bechtel
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Post by Brad Bechtel »

I find that it's best when starting out to choose a tuning and stick with it. In my case, it was open E tuning (bass to treble E B E G# B E). I was playing mostly blues and rock and this tuning fit those styles well.
Had I been playing more Hawaiian or classic country music, I would suggest C6/Am7 (bass to treble C E G A C E).
If I were playing bluegrass or country, I would suggest open G (G B D G B D). You'll find more instructional material written for open G than any other tuning.


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Brad's Page of Steel:
www.well.com/~wellvis/steel.html
A web site devoted to acoustic & electric lap steel guitars
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Jac Rosenberg
Posts: 24
Joined: 5 Feb 2000 1:01 am
Location: Pittman, Nevada

Post by Jac Rosenberg »

thanks brad.i'm going to try the cegace tuning. btw-thank you for your website, it is a wealth of information. if you don't mind me asking, how do you keep it going ($$$)? its obvious that you spend alot of time, energy, and money on it.

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Earnest Bovine
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Post by Earnest Bovine »

CEGACE should be a great tuning to learn first.

After you play it for a while, you can try raising that low string to C# and you will find a lot of new chords there without having to learn a whole new tuning.

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Jac Rosenberg
Posts: 24
Joined: 5 Feb 2000 1:01 am
Location: Pittman, Nevada

Post by Jac Rosenberg »

thanks earnest-i'll try that eventually. i tuned to cegace last night, now i can play like bob brozman. LOL.

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