C6 Neck Theory Questions

[William Smith]

New guy here. Proud new owner of a HWP Mullen from the forum. I'm new to playing steel. I tried playing years ago but it didn't stick.

I found a violin transcription of the "Little Rock Getaway" jazz tune with the chords listed as well. I just tried barreling through it and trying to figure out where to play it on the neck. I have found it difficult to find a good place to play a full Dom 7 chord, which sounds crazy as it is the most common extended chord imaginable. I have even programmed an Excel file that shows all of the scale tones of a standard Emmons pedal configuration up and down the neck. I might be missing something because I am not seeing it.

I found, through barreling through, that I was using pedals 5 & 6 to create the diminished 7th chord shape across the strings and playing a E diminished chord triad and calling that a C7 for practical purposes. It seems like the other options are to lever-raise the high A string to Bb and play there, or mash pedal 8 and make the open Amin7 into a A7. These other options seem bulky. Or, maybe these are the ways the PSG is played and I imagined something else. I do realize that the RKR lever raise of the A string and pedal 5 & 6 give you the same triad on strings 4, 5 & 6 one fret apart, but that right knee right thing seems backwards to me at this point in this little adventure.

Is this what you all find yourself having to do? In my mind, getting a C6 PSG sounded like playing giant chord extension all the time, but I have only three picks, and blocking keeps the ringing mess down, so is it a matter of finding convenient triads at some point? Is it that the C6 provides a platform to find triads that constitute a larger extended chord that happen to be on the same 'fret' when you use pedals so its cleaner to move up and down that chord, rather than making full chord extensions at one time?

How do you all approach this beast? It seems like my job may be to find places where I can get my essential 3-note intervals up and down the neck and that focusing on where I can play, for instance, a full, five-note A9 (1-3-5-b7-9) is not the way to approach it, but rather where I can play essential components of that chord.

Any feedback on the way folks think about this neck is appreciated.

[Ron Funk]

See if this great resource might help you out

http://www.herbsteinermusic.com/C6_essay.pdf

[scott murray]

my go-to C7 chords would be pedal 8 at 3rd fret, pedal 6 at 7th fret, and pedal 5 at 10th fret. if you're looking for a "strummable" C7 with no further voicings then pedal 8 at 3rd fret will give you that on strings 10 thru 4. and raising the 4th string a halfstep as you mentioned in open or 12th fret position will give you that on strings 7 thru 2.

[Ian Rae]

Most of the chords we call 7ths are really 9ths (P5 or P6)

I don't often use a straight 7th as it sounds kinda bland. Your use of the diminished to achieve a 7b9 is totally legit.

[Steve Knight]

If you're playing in C at the 12th fret, you can play an F chord with just the AC on strings 3&4. So, your I and IV chords are both there at the 12th fret. If you slide your bar up two frets and play strings 3&4 at the 14th fret, you have B&D notes, your G chord. It's not a hip jazz chord, but it's a great first step if you're not already doing that.

Remember, too, that if you're playing the 3rd & 5th note of a chord, like EG for C, AC for F, or BD for G, you can hit those notes, then slide up 3 frets to make a 7th chord. So, for C7, you play EG->GBb. Actually, if you keep sliding up or down 3 frets as much as you want to, you play a diminished chord.

If you're playing CE for a C chord, you can hit those notes and then slide down two frets to get BbD, which implies C9. If you play CEG and slide back two frets, you'd end up with BbDF...but, if you then press Pedal 5, that F will be lowered to an E, giving you BbED, a 3-note voicing of C9.

The paper from Herb is great! He also has some good C6 tab, too.

[John DeBoalt]

My LKR lever raises my 4 and 8 strings a half step. I get a hard dom.7th instead of the 6th all the way up the neck.

[William Smith]

Thanks to everyone for the comments. I will look into these.

I still haven't settled on any instruction material and am kind of winging it here. Any suggestions on an instructional pathway?

[Steve Knight]

Buddy Emmons made a great C6 course. I believe you can buy it from Jim Palenscar at https://steelguitars.me

[Ian Rae]

I began with Buddy Emmons' Basic C6 course which I got from Jim Palenscar, I think. I supplemented it with C6 tabs from Herb Steiner. By the time I'd worked my way through those I had a pretty good grounding. The band I'm in requires a good deal of close harmony.

[b0b]

P5 and P6 both make 9th chords. If you skip the the 9th note, they are 7ths. You can mute one string for a strum by using your right pinky finger (or your left thumb if you have small hands).

With P5, don't play the 6th string (E). It's a D7th on open strings.

With P6, don't play the 5th string (G). It's a F7th on open strings.

P6+P7 makes a G7th on open strings 2 through 5.

Also, P8 plus the C# lever (if you have it) makes a full A7th chord.

[John Poston]

P6+P7 makes a G7th on open strings 2 through 5.

I always forget about this voicing but it's a good one.

[Bob Hoffnar]

This might be a place to start

https://steelguitarforum.com/Forum8/HTML/000716.html

[Tom Spaulding]

Thanks to everyone for the comments. I will look into these.

I still haven't settled on any instruction material and am kind of winging it here. Any suggestions on an instructional pathway?

Paul Franklin's C6 Essentials

And this great YouTube video from Paul's Dallas Seminar:Learning The C6 Tuning

[Wayne Baker]

What Tom said. I just enrolled in the mmm class for the second time.

[William Smith]

I have looked into the course am considering it.

To those who have taken or are taking the course:
Do you find it necessary to have a pc setup next to your guitar? Do you need two screens: one for tab and one for the videos? Any thoughts on how the courses flow or measurable improvement in playing based on participation in the course?

[J D Sauser]

I've been invited by someone else than the person who opened the thread to give my 2cents on this.

A few directions:
Get Paul Franklins WHOLE course or the WHOLE C6th course (NOT "Essentials"!)
PF's C6th course however heavily relies on his E9th course... so you might as well bite the bullet and get the whole thing.

Secondly:
In order to understand the pedaled C6th tuning, you need to get solidly acquainted with your basic ROOT strings, and there are 4 (yes FOUR):

- 7th string (C) should be your "Tracker" (as Maurice Anderson would teach it) for the Major 6th. Forget about the 10th string for a while, because it's NOT what you will use as your fundamental in most cases.
If you hit your 7th-pedal, the intervals become the same interval tuning M7th9th as you have 2 strings back on your 9th-string M7(+9th) just a 4th/5th (5/7 frets) apart from another!

- 8th string (A), is your tracker for your minor7th chord, a vi-m7th against your 7th-string M6th or a iii-m7th against your 9th-string M7th, which you can make a minor9th with the Cb lever or a minor-flat5 (half diminished) with your 6th pedal.

- 9th string (F) Major 7th a fourth over you 7th string-Major. The intervals are the same as on your

- last but not least... the "invisible" IIm9th (against the 7th-string) M6th or vi-m9th against your 9th-string-M7th. If you have a "D" on top (instead of the high "G")... you can regard that top note as the root. I, like Maurice Anderson have my bottom (10th) string tuned up from "C" to "D". I would never go back to "C" but I am not the one suggesting to others to alter their tuning. I can only say that last time I saw Maurice, he pointed down to that string saying "I couldn't be without that D HERE!".

You need to relate both minor positions to both Major positions.
Understanding that, you can can play any ii-m, iii-m and vi-m within 2 frets of either Major (7th-string or 9th string Tracker).
Once you have that you can proceed to bring in both Major Tracker positions closer to become a IV-Major to a IM...

You need to make these two starting blocks your two home pockets, interchangeably! They rotate over every 5 respectively 7 frets.

Then you add your 2 most common Dom7th chords (6th pedal OR 5th pedal (3 frets further up) and attach them to your I-Majors and your ii-minors.

This is the KEY to organizing and being able to navigate your C6th neck.
Everything else are "extras" that will only make sense when you have a solid 2-bases blocks to attach them to.

If you don't have that DOWN SOLID... almost BLIND, you will always struggle, need tab, and possibly a calculator.

You need to become acquainted with the concept of ii-m, VDom, I... and UNDERSTAND to MOVE (modulate these sequences on top off any minor and/or with any "target"-Major ending chord.

"Music tends to move in Fourths!":
Some will urge you to learn the circle of 5th's. Actually you should learn it BACKWARDS, as the circle of 4th's, then again, music tends to move in 4ths.


SEQUENCES (Anatole): are sub-progressions which are moved ("modulated") en-bloc (as a unit) within the progression.
Examples:
- a ii-m, V7, IM ove a ii-m is evidently a just a ii-m, V7, IM.
- a iii-m, VI7, IIM... is the SAME group of movements like a ii-m, V7, I starting at the iii-m chord in the progression.



You should be able to play I-M, VI7 or vi-m, iim or IIDom7, ii-m or IIIDom, IV-M and V-Dom, close off both Major-Trackers like going to the bath-room at night and back to bed.

You will want to learn to take a chord sheet and analyze it looking for any and all "ii-m, V7" sequences. REMEMBER: they will NOT always be on top of a II-chord in the PROGRESSION!
Likewise you will want to locate iim, V7, IM... and see if you find another Major chord a 4th away from what MIGHT seem to appear to become the IM (the possible key).

Once you circle all the ii-m, V and ii-m, V, I sequences, just locate around which chord they rotate, and LEARN these ase SEQUENCES (that will reduce the number of chord names by 50% to 60% ). Since you will have taught yourself how to play ii-m, V's and ii-m, V, I's... they will become a snap to execute.

Extensions, alterations, quartal-chords etc... that's all add ons to THAT. If you don't have "THAT", you hardly can add anything to it.

SURE, not every Jazz tune thrives off sequences of ii-m, V, I, some are more complex other may be more simple, BUT in the more simple case, knowing your ii-m, V's will allow you to add sub-Dominants to make the progression more appealing.

[William Smith]

You should be able to play I-M, VI7 or vi-m, iim or IIDom7, ii-m or IIIDom, IV-M and V-Dom, close off both Major-Trackers like going to the bath-room at night and back to bed.

Okay, one takeaway from this, combined with the rest of your response, is:

Based off my trackers (7th, 8th, 9th or imaginary D/1st string), I get a IM6th, IVm7th, IVM7th and IIm7th, respectively, as my base chords from which my possible extensions emerge.

(Using Standard Emmons Pedal Change Definitions)

1. I-M is my 7th string tracker chord. Apply P4 or P7 for 7th/9th chord coloring
2. vi-m is my 8th string tracker. Hit P8 for VI-7 dominant chord
3. ii-m tracks off the 10th string, but root not played, unless P5 pressed, giving a full II-7 chords
4. IV-M tracks off the 9th string
5. V-7 seems to track off the 5th string using P6 and P7. Is this what you were getting at? If so, it would seem that string 6 gets a iii-m7 with P7.

Am I tracking here?

[Colin Swinney]

This chart is pretty handy, I printed it off and laminated mine.

http://www.cryinsteel.com/assets/C6-cho ... -11x17.pdf

[J D Sauser]

You should be able to play I-M, VI7 or vi-m, iim or IIDom7, ii-m or IIIDom, IV-M and V-Dom, close off both Major-Trackers like going to the bath-room at night and back to bed.

Okay, one takeaway from this, combined with the rest of your response, is:

Based off my trackers (7th, 8th, 9th or imaginary D/1st string), I get a IM6th, IVm7th, IVM7th and IIm7th, respectively, as my base chords from which my possible extensions emerge.

(Using Standard Emmons Pedal Change Definitions)



1. I-M is my 7th string tracker chord. Apply P4 or P7 for 7th/9th chord coloring
2. vi-m is my 8th string tracker. Hit P8 for VI-7 dominant chord
3. ii-m tracks off the 10th string, but root not played, unless P5 pressed, giving a full II-7 chords
4. IV-M tracks off the 9th string
5. V-7 seems to track off the 5th string using P6 and P7. Is this what you were getting at? If so, it would seem that string 6 gets a iii-m7 with P7.

Am I tracking here?

You're trackin' jest fine.

I would START by looking not at the 7th string Major, but at the 9th string.
A lot of tunes are in C and Bb... if you look at C at the Zero-Fret your stuck against a wall (the nut) and you can't reach "behind"... that puts you up to the 12th fret which has over-tone issues and centers you rather high up.

To me, C Major is at the 7th fret tracked on the 9th string. Two frets below I have ii-m (8th string Tracker) and on the same fret I have VDom7th with the 5th pedal or another 3 frets below with the 6th pedal. And I got vi-m ON the Major Fret (7th in this example (D-string Tracker).
IV Tracks on the 7th string on the same fret as ii-m (two frets below the Major fret (7th).

Two other reasons I stress starting to explore based off the 9th string Major is:
- If you learn to navigate from that "home" or "center", you will learn something that once you look at navigating out of the 7th string Major HOLDING the 7th pedal down, not for "coloring", you will realize that EVERYTHING (even where the ii-m and V are relative to it) you learned off the 9th string center will repeat just 2 string forward (into the thinner strings). This will make adding that center much easier and make you understand the origins of the 7th pedal better. (Yes, there are a LOT of other things one can do with that pedal... but as a basic "door opener", THAT's why it came about and it's main purpose was to repeat the tuning a 4th or respectively a 5th from the other center. This is IMPORTANT to maintain the ability to play any tune in ANY key without running into mechanical boundaries (like an ocasional nut or getting lost into Hughey-Land (too far into high up frets)).

- The other reason is that traditionally coming from Hawaiian, Steel Guitar Swing and Western Swing, WE (steelers) have a to other musicians somewhat odd tendency to emphasize on the Major 6th sounds. That comes from 6th and 13th tunings.
To most other musicians that tends to sounds "minor". In Jazz one of the main reasons why you would play a M6th chord would be to evade a clash with a melody line which starts on the 1st degree of the same chord's scale. IF then you'd play a M7th, you'd have your main color note just a half step away form the melody note.
So, one seeks to create space and play the 6th degree instead, a minor third below that 1st degree melody note. There are other instances where specific "coloring" may call for a 6th. Jazz Rhythm Guitarist tend to alter between M7th & M6th on longer segments of the same Major Chords.

So, my advice always is to first organize the playing block centered off the 9th-string Major with all progression chords as suggested in my previous post and then only, explore and build the same navigation centered off the 7th-string Major with the 7th pedal engaged. And I bet you, it will put a big grin on your face at that "aha!"-moment.


What is difficult about C6th is NOT the tuning and the 4 or 5 pedals. It's the music style and the need to understand MOVEMENTS. Jazz, except for some one-chord so called modal pieces like Miles Davis' "So What" (1959 Kind'a Blue Album), evidently has more chords than Country used to have, and over time, one needs to get a good grip of chord alterations etc and DEGREES (what position each note of the chord are).
Music is much rooted in REPETITION and this tuning is no different.

DON'T think much in Fret NUMBERS, rather in fret DISTANCES for each movement!
"2 frets down, another 3 frets down +the 6th pedal, 5 frets up". This is a form you can MOVE as a block.
So that any movement you acquire, you can move it and place it over a different starting chord or different target chord (as explained in my previous post too).


I hope this is of help... J-D.

[Steve Knight]

There are some good lessons on this site, too:

https://musiccitylicks.vhx.tv

You can click "content" to browse, enroll monthly/annually, or take a 3-day trial. Jim Loessberg and Nathan Flemming have some C6 lessons there. I enrolled mainly to study the C6 content, but I have access to the whole site until I cancel. The lessons were helpful.

[William Smith]

I hope this is of help... J-D.

This is of great help. I appreciate the time you took to post this and I think others who read it will gain from it.

[J D Sauser]

I hope this is of help... J-D.

This is of great help. I appreciate the time you took to post this and I think others who read it will gain from it.

Thanks William! Makes my day hearing that!... J-D.

[Al Evans]

[...]
This is of great help. I appreciate the time you took to post this and I think others who read it will gain from it.

Thanks William! Makes my day hearing that!... J-D.

I'm getting back into working on the C6th neck (after a few weeks of E9th study) and I appreciate it, too!

Thanks!

--Al Evans

[Tom Spaulding]

I have looked into the course am considering it.

To those who have taken or are taking the course:
Do you find it necessary to have a pc setup next to your guitar? Do you need two screens: one for tab and one for the videos? Any thoughts on how the courses flow or measurable improvement in playing based on participation in the course?

You can watch the videos on nearly any mobile device: iPhone, Android, iPad, Surface, PC, Mac using almost any browser: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Brave, Edge, even Amazon Kindle browser Silk. Minimum specs change and current supported versions are listed in course FAQs.

All of the non-video materials (TABs, charts, pdfs, practice tracks) are downloadable, you can print out the text materials and save the MP3s to your drive.

C6 Essentials is great for those who have basic/intermediate E9 knowledge and are just getting started with (or want to take a fresh look at) the C6 tuning. You need to have your physical techniques up to speed as the course deals with playing the C6 tuning, not playing the pedal steel guitar. Prior Picking/Blocking/Pedal Technique abilities are all assumed. Transferring and applying those techniques to the C6 tuning is the focus.

Everything that is found in any of the $99 courses is included in The Paul Franklin Method. Sign up for the complete Method if that works best for you.

We offer the various $99 courses as entry-level ways to gradually get into the complete Method. Any and all of the $99 course tuitions: E9 Foundations, E9 Toolbox, C6 Essentials, C6 Toolbox can be applied later (at any time) to the full Method. It's a popular option for those who want to work their way up into the full PFM.

If you'd like to get an idea of how the course delivery format works, you can take advantage of Paul's FREE lessons: Free Paul Franklin Lessons

[John Swain]

William Smith, I reposted my Short Tab for "Little Rock Getaway" showing positions and pedals for the voicings.