F Maj7 Tuning

[Jack Aldrich]

Here is a tuning that I got from Alan Akaka. It's very useful. On an 8 string steel, the bottom 4 strings are a B7, the middle 4 are an FMaj7, and the top 3 are a C chord. Here it is (from bottom) G B D F A C E G. Alan provided me with a 6 string version, and I added the 1st and 8th string. I've had a problem with the B11 tuning and singers. They want to do Mapuana, Sand and others in C, which is not good on the B11 tuning. It sits in the middle of the FM7 tuning, since the F chord is at the 5th fret, and I use the bottom 4 strings for7th chords.

[Jesse Pearson]

Jack,did you mean to say the bottom 4 strings spell a G7 chord (G,B,D,F)? B7 is spelled from low to high (B,D#,F#,A). There is also a Bmin7b5 (B,D,F,A) and a Dmin7 chord (D,F,A,C) in that Tuning.

[Jim Cohen]

... and an Am7 too (A C E G). In fact, every consecutive 4 strings makes a new chord, covering the qualities of Dominant7, M7, m7, and m7b5.

[Jack Aldrich]

Jack,did you mean to say the bottom 4 strings spell a G7 chord (G,B,D,F)? B7 is spelled from low to high (B,D#,F#,A). There is also a Bmin7b5 (B,D,F,A) and a Dmin7 chord (D,F,A,C) in that Tuning.

Poor typing on my part. G7 it is.

[Jack Aldrich]

I first sprung this tuning on the attendees at the fall HSGA convention. Actually, I posted this at the request of Jeff Au Hoy, who I saw yesterday at the Seattle Slack Key Festival. Jeff backed me up and sang "From Hawaii To You" for me at HSGA. I had my Canopus D8 tuned to a B11 on the upper neck and the FM7 tuning on the lower neck so I could demonstrate the difference between them, and Jim, you are correct that there's an Am7 there, too. I'm continuing to explore the FM7 tuning for standards and other exotica. It's fun!

[Einar Baldursson]

It looks like David Keli'is G11 tuning on strings 7-2 (B-D-F-A-C-E)
He used it on Hawaiian Paradise, Mapuana, How’d Ya Do and probably a few more. There some threads about it if you do a search. I've always liked that tuning for six stringers as it is easily retuneable from C6 (sharing it's top strings) and has a nice sound with some great chords, I should try your 8-string version Jack, good to get that major triad on top.

[Andy Volk]

This is a cool tuning; can't believe I never tried it before. Just tuning it up, plugging into the computer with no thought or prep and playing the first thing I heard by ear suggests lots of possibilities here. Will have to investigate further. Thanks, Jack!

https://picosong.com/wXmTK/

[Frank Welsh]

Give a listen to "Manuela Boy" from the "Hawaii Calls' Hawaiian Strings Vol. 3 - Favorite Instrumentals of the Islands" album presented by Webley Edwards. This is an excellent example of the G11th tuning and its' ability to lend a "jazzy" flavor to a tune.

"Manuela Boy" starts at 9:08 in the YouTube link below; the whole album is very worthwhile for a listen.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yujS4hXf7f0

[Butch Pytko]

If the G11 tuning works out OK on "Manuela Boy" on the "Hawaiian Strings" LP, that's fine. However, after my exhaustive research, I strongly believe that Jules Ah See played that song on his Fender 1000 pedal steel. On the intro with the strums alone, I think he's using the Major 7th pedal. My feeling is he used the C13 as the home tuning, then adding pedals--giving other tuning variations. He had the Fender 1000 when "Hawaiian Strings", "Hawaiian Shores", and "Favorite Instrumentals Of The Islands" were recorded--1957 to 1959. There are examples of pedals being used on all 3 of those LP's, besides other albums with the Hawaiian singers.

That's as far as I'll go in STEEL WITHOUT PEDALS section. I still play my non pedal steels!

[Frank Welsh]

Jack,

Your extended G11th tuning sounds like a good move for accompanying those singers.

One question - does that high G string sound a bit thin, enough to bother you?

Butch,

Good point. Jules' use of pedals explains why I could almost but not quite duplicate on non-pedal some of the chords he played on those albums.

[Allan Revich]

Here is a tuning that I got from Alan Akaka. It's very useful. On an 8 string steel, the bottom 4 strings are a B7, the middle 4 are an FMaj7, and the top 3 are a C chord. Here it is (from bottom) G B D F A C E G. Alan provided me with a 6 string version, and I added the 1st and 8th string. I've had a problem with the B11 tuning and singers. They want to do Mapuana, Sand and others in C, which is not good on the B11 tuning. It sits in the middle of the FM7 tuning, since the F chord is at the 5th fret, and I use the bottom 4 strings for7th chords.

This 8 string tuning (GBDFACEG) looks really useful! I think it’s actually a complete G13, G with the 7, 9, 11, and 13. I may be mistaken though. The string sequence is brilliant.
G, G7, Bdim, Dm, Dm7, F, FM7, Am, Am7, C, partial Em. And that’s only the first inversion of 3 & 4 note chords on consecutive strings. When you move from strums to grips, the options are nearly endless.

I came upon this thread because I’ve recently been experimenting with a 6 & 7 string version of FM7, and was curious to see if anyone else was tuning FM7. I’ve been using FCFACE and FACFACE.

[Nic Neufeld]

GMaj7 came to me through Alan, too (From Hawaii To You, and Mapuana, for which it is ideally suited). I look at it like an extended B11 type tuning. Where B11 is (effectively) a B9/A6 split tuning...7ths and 9ths strumming from the bottom up for chordal dissonance, with a 6th tuning for more straight melodic parts on top.

So the GMaj7 tuning could be seen as F9/G6M7 type split tuning. Really the same exact concept but with an extra string up top to give you the Maj7.

B11 being my main secondary tuning, I've long kind of wished I could have one extra string up top for that kind of thing...particularly on songs like Mapuana. I could give up one of my bass strings on an 8, but that low, deep thrum is basically essential for certain songs so I can't bring myself to do that. Well, maybe I'll get a 9 or 10 string someday.

"They want to do Mapuana, Sand and others in C, which is not good on the B11 tuning." ...honestly I can hardly imagine playing Sand in any other key on B11, it fits perfectly with certain tricks involving open strings...but I play the Jules Ah See version...if I recall correctly, Jerry Byrd's arrangement had an intro added that doesn't work as well in C, so I could see that.

[Fred]

I tried something like this years ago when I was trying every tuning I could find or invent. I wanted all the chords. This is a major scale in thirds. You get every diatonic triad and seventh chord in a major scale on one fret. The problem l found is you don’t get multiple inversions without moving up and down the neck a lot.

I finally settled down to a more conventional tuning and took the time to learn to play. With what I know now, I’d probably be able to get more out of it than I could as a beginner.