Misnamed Tunings

[Allan Revich]

Maybe this question is overly pedantic, but it seems to me that many fairly common tunings are misnamed. Is there a good reason for this!

For example, I often see C6 tunings include Bb (Bobby Ingano). There’s no Bb in a C6 chord. Wouldn’t that be a C13?

I see reference to C# minor 7 written out as E G# B D E G# C# E which is an E13, there is no D in C#m7.

There are a couple others here too... C6 tunings with an F (Anderson, Robertson)



I guess it doesn’t really matter what an individual player calls a tuning for his own use, but wouldn’t it make sense to publish tunings with the right chord names?

[Jack Hanson]

That chart is just a tad misleading. How anyone could consider C#m7 a "C" tuning is beyond me.

In the big picture, it really doesn't matter much. To quote the late, great Rice Miller: "You can call it yo' mammy if you wanna."

[Scott Thomas]

That's a nice reference, inconsistencies and all. I do think of an eight string C6 with a Bb as a C13, but on a six string with a low Bb I think of it with as C6 with the sixth string tuned down a half step. That's my quirky way of looking at it.

I have an old Bernie Kaai Hawaiian guitar method which lists a few tunings with Am7 among them. That is what we call C6 of course---same notes. It's the oldest mention I have of that tuning. I wonder sometimes why it came to be called C6. There is some debate as to who first played it, Jerry Byrd being a top candidate.

[Walter Webb]

To construct a 13th chord, I always thought that dominant chord theory sez you take a major chord, add the 7th, then the 9th, the 11th, and finally the 13th, in a stack of thirds at the top. In steel guitar practice, it seems like a C13 is pretty much a C6 with a Bb if you are adventurous... We delete the 9th and 11th. I'm no expert, of course...

[Allan Revich]

To construct a 13th chord, I always thought that dominant chord theory sez you take a major chord, add the 7th, then the 9th, the 11th, and finally the 13th, in a stack of thirds at the top. In steel guitar practice, it seems like a C13 is pretty much a C6 with a Bb if you are adventurous... We delete the 9th and 11th. I'm no expert, of course...

My understanding is that you are technically correct, but omitting notes in chords with more than 5 notes is acceptable practice across instruments and disciplines. So a chord can still be “correctly” a 13th if it contains at least the dominant 7 and the 13 (6). The 9, 11, and I read somewhere that even the 5, can often be omitted without changing the chord name. And when it comes to playing a chord, as opposed to naming a tuning, even a double stop (dyad) is often sufficient.

My issue isn’t so much with tunings that omit notes, but with tunings that add notes that are not in the chord. Sure, for your own personal shorthand it’s fine, but communicating musical information to other musicians requires a common language and standardized nomenclature. At least IMHO.

[Mark Eaton]

Kind of a tangent, but one of my pet peeves. Part of the problem for me is naming the tunings in a horizontal line from high to low (treble to bass), rather than low to high like rest of the guitar family of instruments. Or reciting the notes on the treble clef. This has driven me nuts for many years. I often have a difficult time “visualizing” a tuning when it’s written as high to low.

“Oh - but this is how it’s been done in the steel guitar world for decades.” That one has been trotted out here in the SGF a number of times over the years.

That still doesn’t excuse it and make it a good idea.

[Ian Rae]

On pedal steel, the standard C6 tuning has an F in it and should properly be called Fmaj7add9.

Which is easier to say?

[David Matzenik]

I don't believe some anonymous progenitor sat down and invented a 13th chord tuning, or any other more complex tuning. The first tunings seem to have been majors, with variants coming as players experimented. The variants are personal choices. My main tuning is A6th with G on the bottom. The 7th note is auxiliary. I play mainly on the upper strings, in A6th, and almost never try to play an A13th chord. So I don't call it A13th.

[Ian Rae]

I guess it's a similar situation with that F in the 10-string C6 tuning. Like your low G, it has an auxiliary purpose.

[Fred Treece]

Kind of a tangent, but one of my pet peeves. Part of the problem for me is naming the tunings in a horizontal line from high to low (treble to bass), rather than low to high like rest of the guitar family of instruments. Or reciting the notes on the treble clef. This has driven me nuts for many years. I often have a difficult time “visualizing” a tuning when it’s written as high to low.

“Oh - but this is how it’s been done in the steel guitar world for decades.” That one has been trotted out here in the SGF a number of times over the years.

That still doesn’t excuse it and make it a good idea.

+1
Shouldn’t have to moonwalk your way around a tuning figuring out what to call it.

[Jerry Wagner]

Kind of a tangent, but one of my pet peeves. Part of the problem for me is naming the tunings in a horizontal line from high to low (treble to bass), rather than low to high like rest of the guitar family of instruments. Or reciting the notes on the treble clef. This has driven me nuts for many years. I often have a difficult time “visualizing” a tuning when it’s written as high to low.

I might be deluded, biased, etc., but I think the reason guitar players list chords from Low to Hi is because conventional guitar chord shape diagrams orient the fret board with the nut at the top, so strings read from Right (Low) to Left (Hi). Typical steel guitar TAB orients the fret board with the nut on the left, so strings read from Top (Hi) to Bottom (Low), sometimes even numbered 1-8 like on a string set package. But that vertical orientation takes too much time & space on the page in a text message. Long-time guitar players who don't use steel TAB or fret board chord diagrams much might never agree, because they always visualize the conventional guitar chord shape orientation. If I list strings horizontally from Hi to Low in a message, I try to remember to note that.

[Fred Treece]

I might be deluded, biased, etc., but I think the reason guitar players list chords from Low to Hi is because conventional guitar chord shape diagrams orient the fret board with the nut at the top, so strings read from Right (Low) to Left (Hi). Typical steel guitar TAB orients the fret board with the nut on the left, so strings read from Top (Hi) to Bottom (Low), sometimes even numbered 1-8 like on a string set package.

I guess you get E for effort, Jerry, but if I may....
Guitar tabs are oriented the same as steel tabs. Guitar chord fingering charts bear little resemblance to tabs or steel guitar fretboard chord charts, so I don’t understand how that has any bearing. The string numbering system is the only weirdo issue, but that also is the same for guitars and steels.
Something as simple as a standard format for this doesn’t seem too much to ask. Has any other fretted instrument has not settled on low to high? I really don’t know. But I do know there are TONS of guitar players playing steel, for whom low to high just makes more sense, and for whom this peeve is probably shared.
****End Rant Here****

[Scott Thomas]

Just thinking back to the primordial beginning, I memorized the standard guitar tuning using the mnemonic edge be (eadgbe). I do the same with C6 only backwards since this is the way I first saw steel tunings written--low to high. "ecagec" is a pronounceable word, not so the other direction.

I am aware this isn't the case with all tunings. Most of us are knowledgeable enough by now to see that tuning is written hi to lo, or lo to hi. I always include "hi to lo" in my spellings here for clarity.

[Mark Eaton]

I might be deluded, biased, etc., but I think the reason guitar players list chords from Low to Hi is because conventional guitar chord shape diagrams orient the fret board with the nut at the top, so strings read from Right (Low) to Left (Hi).

I'm confused Jerry. Below is a 1st position C Major chord diagram for guitar. Left to right it is low to high. Or right to left it is high to low.




As Fred pointed out, guitar and steel tablature are oriented the same.

I'm helping one of my daughters take another shot at standard guitar after her failed attempt at getting over the dreaded "beginner's hump" a number of years ago. The letters for standard tuning on their own aren't very intuitive (EADGBE) so I have taught her the old classic: Eat A Darn Good Breakfast Early - low to high, of course.

Memorizing C6 tuning by making it into a pronounceable word is nice - because there are vowels involved. Then there are tunings like high bass Open G - tough one to pronounce when it's spelled GBDGBD. Backwards or
forwards - making it into a pronounceable word is pretty much useless.

C6 - when it's written low to high I can see it:
CEG - the C chord, and A minor ACE above it on the fretboard.

So in teaching my daughter the notes in a C Major chord I say "C-E-G." I could say "G-E-C" but who does that? Oh wait - apparently steel guitar players do.

When I started out taking steel guitar lessons as a kid in the '60s, or it might have been in elementary school music class - we learned the notes on the treble clef by memorizing another phrase like standard guitar tuning: low to high, EGBDF for the lines on the staff - "Every Good Boy Does Fine" (or "Deserves Favor"). Maybe they don't use that one anymore, it might be considered sexist. And learning the spaces was easy because low to high spells out the word FACE. That sure beats the high to low version, ECAF. I'm sure that the number of SGF members who learned the staff this way is in the thousands.

Obviously adding "low to high," or "high to low" when listing a tuning written out horizontally clarifies it. And yes, most of us can relate to the "high to low" from experience. But there are a whole lot of newer steel players out there today, particularly in lap/non-pedal because it can be inexpensive to get started as opposed to pedal steel. There are a bunch of newer players here on the forum and if you go to the Lap Steel Lunatics page on Facebook there are new players on a daily basis asking advice. Many of these folks come from a guitar background.

It's been years since I played golf on a regular basis, but when I do, I'm a lefty.

Left handed golf instruction books were pretty rare back in the 70's when I took up the game. Maybe they are more common now because of the success of a lefty like Phil Mickelson.

I would read an instructional book by say Jack Nicklaus or Ben Hogan, and they would write "make sure to keep your left arm straight on your backswing" and I would have to convert it by thinking "in my case, that means keep my right arm straight." It would get a little mentally fatiguing after awhile as I would wade through these books.

That's how I get when I read the chart at the beginning of this thread listing tunings as "high to low."

[Scott Thomas]

Of course, steel guitar tab lists the tuning vertically on the staff at the left like so:

E
C
A
G
E
C

It's natural (for me anyway) to read from the top down, so another reason for spelling high to low.

[David Ford]

I saw a YouTube video Penetration on a 6 string lap steel. Diatonic tuning in F. Low F, G, A, Bb, C, D. Anyone know what gauge strings to use for that?
Peace, David

[Joe Breeden]

Just curious. I string my Weissenborn, low to high, FACFAC. I call it F tuning. What is the technical name. Thanks Joe

[Scott Thomas]

That would be F major.

[Mark Eaton]

That would be F major.

Or you could call it Open F.

In the years when Alison Krauss & Union Station was active (I really miss that band), Jerry Douglas would keep a resonator on stage in FACFAC for one song only during the course of the evening - their hit version of Man of Constant Sorrow with the lead vocal by Dan Tyminski. Apparently Dan's "sweet spot" for the tune is in the key of F so Jerry wanted to be able to play in the same agressive style using hammer-ons and pull-offs that he employs when tuned a whole step higher to the usual Open G.

There is even a setting on the Fishman Jerry Douglas Aura pedal for playing in FACFAC.

[Scott Thomas]

In the Hawaiian tradition anyway, that tuning relates to the A major or "high bass A"

E
C#
A
E
C#
A

Any reference to "open" tunings relates to Spanish guitar tuned from "closed" standard to "open" i.e. tuned to a chord as heard in slack key and blues styles.

It's funny I just watched "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" again yesterday!

[Jeff Mead]

Just thinking back to the primordial beginning, I memorized the standard guitar tuning using the mnemonic edge be (eadgbe).

How is "edge be" a mnemonic for eadgbe?

[Fred Treece]

Just thinking back to the primordial beginning, I memorized the standard guitar tuning using the mnemonic edge be (eadgbe).

How is "edge be" a mnemonic for eadgbe?

Phonics. The DG grouping doesn’t quite work in “edge be”, but everything else does, and it’s more than close enough in this grammatically challenged world. I had never heard of that mnemonic before, but I like it.

[b0b]

My 6 string tuning is G B D F# A D. I call it D/G, pronounced “D over G”. I think that’s better than the chord name G Major 9, don’t you?

[Scott Thomas]

Fred is very knowleadgbel.

[Frank Nims]

My mnemonic for standard guitar tuning is ee-ad-gubby.

It's just another open tuning - Em11 (omitting the 9th).