Sigh.... Robert Randolph Tuning ?????

Steve Howard · Post by **Steve Howard** » 2 Oct 2006 3:40 am

Do I even dare bring it up.

I think it has finally become a safe subject around here and I know there are 40 threads already about Robert and about 4 about his tuning but they all look to be from a couple years back.

Finding Robert's actual 13 string tuning is way more difficult than I ever thought. I visited b0b's page on it and it still isn't completely clear to me what the tuning is.

I have tuned my 10 string non-pedal neck to a E7 tuning without the double E's and the low B to get the 12 string tuning I saw on Carter's site for him to 10 strings.

Do I expect to recreate in one weekend what Robert has taken a lifetime to achieve? Of course not, but although the E7 tuning I am using makes since, I hear SO MUCH more dynamic playing that I am able to do with it when I break his recordings down. With E7, I can only seem to get away with playing at the root, and 2 frets down from the root. Robert is all over the place making it sound much more lively and not completely bluesish.

I almost think if I with C6 I could recreate it better as C6 seems to have more ability to move frets and still stay in key.

So, anybody actually find out what the actually tuning is yet? Or am I just in denial that it is truly a E7(ish) tuning?

I don't need the compedance because we all know he rarely uses the pedals anyway.

Larry Weaver · Post by **Larry Weaver** » 2 Oct 2006 4:02 am

Heya Steve,
I'd suggest getting a copy of Chuck Cambell's DVD. Great insights into the world of Sacred Steel. Also, search the forum for Dan Tayack's Sacred Steel tuning.

To my ears, Robert seems to blend a lot of the bluesy elements with liberal sprinklings of major and minor pentatonics; I'm sure a result of his listening to a lot of Stevie Ray. As a lot of guys will say, most of it's there on the E9 neck, just a matter of finding it. Personally, I like the Universal tuning for this sort of stuff. I drop the low F# to E on a knee lever.

I'd have to disagree with the thought that he dosen't use pedals. I was at a recent show, and he used knee levers and pedal extensively.

Steve Howard · Post by **Steve Howard** » 2 Oct 2006 4:38 am

I haven't seen him live yet so I will defer my thought on how he uses his pedals. Many others here said he doesn't use them much and on the crossroads DVD he didn't. But I have heard clips of him playing country riffs and know he knows how to use them well.

If he uses them a lot now then I guess it will be that much more difficult

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 2 Oct 2006 6:08 am

Here's RR's 13-string copedant from the Sierra site:

<pre> LKL LKV LKR RKL RKR
P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7
1 F#
2 D#
3 G# G A G
4 E D F F#
5 D D# C#
6 B Bb C# C#
7 G# Bb A G
8 E D F F#
9 E Eb D F
10 B Bb C#
11 G# Bb A G
12 E F# F# F
13 B Bb
</pre>

And here's Chuck Campbell's 12-string tuning. Chuck was RR's mentor, and plays this tuning as good or better.
<pre> LKL LKV LKR RKL RKR
P1 P2 P3 P4 P5 P6 P7
1 F#
2 E D
3 G# A G
4 E F# F
5 D D# C# C#
6 B Bb C#
7 G# Bb A G
8 E F# F
9 E D# D
10 B C# C#
11 E F# F# F# F
12 B C# C#
</pre>

They both approach blues-gospel as if playing a many stringed lap steel. They don't use pedals much for the fast pentatonic stuff, but they may be doing things with knee levers we don't see.

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 2 Oct 2006 6:15 am

I was just sitting eating some super fine
11 hour cooked brisket this evening,
at 'Nigels' on the beach here.

And suddenly out of the
Sausolito music cafe next door
RR and the family band came littling,
at high speed, my way.

it was one of the fast numbers, and I heard it,
and at first it was mostly the lead lines,
and I was thinking gee I know this great tune...
then it dawned on me !!

It was just so unexpected here in Thailand.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 2 Oct 2006 8:33 am

Yesterday I saw RR playing in some TV football add. He's everywhere.

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 2 Oct 2006 10:22 am

There are two big differences between the SS tunings and the Extended E9th:

1. the high D string between the B and E.
2. replacing the 3 midrange strings D E F# with two E strings (brilliant, IMHO!)

There are no inherent limitations in the SS tunings, compared to E9th. All of the standard E9th stuff is playable on SS. The main problem is the lack of teaching materials, especially at the beginner level.

I'm moving this to the Pedal Steel section from Steel Players.

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b2005.gif" width="78 height="78">Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Williams D-12 E9, C6add9, Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop S-8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, C6 or A6) My Blog 
<div style="display:none">

Cliff Kane · Post by **Cliff Kane** » 2 Oct 2006 10:54 am

Bobby,
you say, "There are no inherent limitations in the SS tunings, compared to E9th".
Would you elaborate on what you feel the inherent limitations of E9 are, and does the extended E9 12-string tuning address those limitations? For example, what can you not do on E9, or extended E9, that you can do with the SS tuning? I'm not taking issue with this at all, just trying to get a handle on this.

Thanks

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 2 Oct 2006 11:08 am

For example, what can you not do on E9, or extended E9, that you can do with the SS tuning?

The SS tuning allows full strumming of major, minor and 7th chords. It's very suitable for rhythm parts. The E9th doesn't do well in this area.

The modern E9th excels in moving tones within chords. There is no equivalent for the modern F# to G# change in the Sacred Steel tuning, and no equivalent for the Franklin pedal.

The fundamentals of E9th are all there in the SS, though. I've heard Chuck Campbell slip into chicken pickin now and then.

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b2005.gif" width="78 height="78">Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Williams D-12 E9, C6add9, Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop S-8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, C6 or A6) My Blog 
<div style="display:none">

David Wren · Post by **David Wren** » 2 Oct 2006 11:31 am

Well said b0b! At first I thought the double Es were a typo... then I looked at pedal and KLs changes... I agree, like Guiness draft in a can, Brilliant!

------------------
Dave Wren
'96 Carter S12-E9/B6,7X7; NV 112; Fender Twin Custom 15 ('65 reissue); Session 500s; Hilton Pedal; Black Box
www.ameechapman.com

Kyle Everson · Post by **Kyle Everson** » 2 Oct 2006 6:43 pm

I saw that ad on TV. Apparently he is ABC's "Hank Jr" for the college games this season. He was playing a red Jackson guitar, like the black Jackson he was playing when I saw him a couple months ago.

------------------
Kyle Everson
Sho-Bud Pro-II
Fender Twin Reverb
Goodrich 120

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 2 Oct 2006 7:44 pm

A 13 string Jackson? Really?

John Macy · Post by **John Macy** » 3 Oct 2006 6:25 am

quote:

"I don't need the compedance because we all know he rarely uses the pedals anyway"

I was talking about this with Jerry Fessenden and he says Robert uses them all the time, in fact, he plays them so hard he is breaking the ball joints off now and then--has to carry spares...

He will be playing the new flamed Fessy on Conan O'Brien and Regis and Kelli next week...

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 3 Oct 2006 7:45 am

Chuck gets a lot of pretty chords out of his copedent, especially on the slow songs. I know they don't really play R&B, but I think Chuck could slide right into any classic R&B act and cover the rhythm guitar parts verbatim.

The SS copedent definitely has all of that stuff in it.

Franklin · Post by **Franklin** » 3 Oct 2006 4:40 pm

Bobby Lee,
The E9th tuning is not limited for playing rhythm parts. On the Standard E9th, all a player has to do to play rock rhythm parts is to Raise the D to E And lower the F# to E and lower the bottm B to A on a lever. The lever would be used in combination with the B pedal. It provides the root/fifth combinations which guitarists use for rhythm parts over majors or minor chords.

I don't see the SS tunings you posted above providing all the choices of known country licks, because of the missing F# and D strings in the open tuning. Yes, the SS tunings has those notes with pedals and can get some of the stuff. But alot of pickers raise the F#s to G and/or G# in combination with the A and E notes. There is a ton of country riffs found along with some very pretty harmonies in the bending sounds of those strings. I don't see a way to get them within the tunings you posted above.

The E9th is based around the modal scale concept. The SS tuning is based around the pentatonic and blues scales. These tunings are based around two different areas of improvisational concepts.

Paul[This message was edited by Franklin on 03 October 2006 at 05:53 PM.][This message was edited by Franklin on 03 October 2006 at 05:56 PM.][This message was edited by Franklin on 03 October 2006 at 06:00 PM.]

Dean Parks · Post by **Dean Parks** » 3 Oct 2006 8:46 pm

Good one Paul. I've been horsing around with this in a different way, slightly. Rather than on a lever (of which I don't want to sacrifice any), I just TUNE the 7th and 9th to E... except, I take the 9th down to the lower octave. It works.

I've wondered if a Scruggs tuner on 7 would be nice... just reach over and tune it down real quick. I don't know if right-angle Scruggs tuners exist tho.

Seems Daniel Lanois tunes the F# to E, but tunes the D to C#, so the pedals-down is the strummer chord.

-dean-

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 3 Oct 2006 9:34 pm

Alternatively: A lever on my E9 lowers 7th string F# to E, and 9th string D to C#.
A major triad or C# minor triad are strummable across the 10 middle strings.

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 4 Oct 2006 10:11 am

Hi Paul. You wrote:

On the Standard E9th, all a player has to do to play rock rhythm parts is to Raise the D to E And lower the F# to E and lower the bottm B to A on a lever. The lever would be used in combination with the B pedal.

Once you do that, it's no longer a "Standard" E9th, IMHO. Very few people have the changes you describe.

My point is that the SS copedent is designed from the ground up for rhythm as well as lead. Chuck refers to this as the "autoharp" mode of playing.

My second point is that it also provides the fundamentals of the E9th. The basic E9th changes developed in the 1950's and 1960's are there. I agree that if you want the modern E9th sound with F# bends etc, the SS doesn't have it. Also, fast midrange scales that use strings 7 8 9 in sequence are more difficult on the SS, because you only have 2 strings there instead of 3.

I've been playing rhythm parts on Extended E9th since 1978. I also played the SS copedent part-time for a couple of years. To me it's obvious that rhythm parts are much easier to play on the SS.

------------------
<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b2005.gif" width="78 height="78">Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Williams D-12 E9, C6add9, Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop S-8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, C6 or A6) My Blog 
<div style="display:none">

Dean Parks · Post by **Dean Parks** » 4 Oct 2006 1:53 pm

Clarifying my earlier post regarding retuning 7 and 9 for a major chord ... if you keep the "new" E's in the same octave (unision with the 8th str), tuning of the open chord is still good (you've lowered 7 a step, and raised 9 a step... an even trade, tension-wise).

However, if you drop 9 to the octave-lower E, the open chord will be sharper... tune these new E's by ear to 8. Tuning WITHIN the chord is still good, and adjustment can be made in bar placement on the non-open chords.

Franklin · Post by **Franklin** » 4 Oct 2006 7:54 pm

Bobby,
Don't see your point. Once you press any pedal the tuning changes from open E9th into something else.
What standard E9th? Beyond the first three pedals, and lowering and raising the E's on a couple of levers, is there really a standard copedant that EVERy player follows known as the standard E9th?

I was responding to your statement that the E9th is limited when playing rhythm. I pointed you into a direction where the same SS style rhythms are possible without losing a single lick.

You seem to be implying that non standard changes shouldn't be applied to the tuning to meet a players musical desires? The history of the E9th tuning is that it has evolved through various players needs. Adding a rhythm pedal is just another step towards the tunings evolution. If someone wants to add the SS style to their playing, why waste time learning a new tuning when they can add a change or two that will provide them the same melodic and rhythmic styles?

According to the above copedant charts I see that its all possible within anyones reach inside the E9th tuning or extended 12 string E9th with a few modified changes.

Dean,

Why give up anything? Tuning the strings differently will certainly limit the traditional styles of the tuning if that's part of your quest. I would add the change to the fifth pedal along with the G# to A raise. Or I might consider adding a cluster lever so that I wouldn't have to sacrifice any lever.

See you on the 16th.

Paul

[This message was edited by Franklin on 04 October 2006 at 08:57 PM.]

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 5 Oct 2006 3:58 am

Paul a SS pedal is a very cool idea.
Especially if it stays compatible with the levers available.
I will cogitate some.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 5 Oct 2006 6:40 am

Here' Dan Tyack's 10-string modified E9/SS copedant:
<pre> LKL LKV LKR RKL RKR
P1 P2 P3 P4
1 F# G#
2 D# D, C# E
3 G# A
4 E F F# Eb
5 B Bb C# C# A
6 G# A F#
7 F# E
8 E F D Eb
9 B A
10 E Bb C#
</pre>

He gets the SS strummable E chord on a lever (RKR), and that same lever does double duty by having some interaction with the Franklin pedal (P4). Notice that he also put the low D on a lever (LKR), as on a uni. If you added two more strings on the bottom you would in fact have the E9/B6 uni tuning. True to its name, the universal can get almost all of E9, C6 and SS. I'd say you can get 90% of each. Rather than lament the loss of 10% on each, I embrace the fact that you get 3 x 90% = 270%.

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 5 Oct 2006 7:07 am

Paul, maybe I wasn't clear. I'm just saying that it's easier to play rhythm on the Sacred Steel copedent than on the E9th. I've played both, and that's what I learned from the experience.

I do play rhythm a lot on the E9th. Bandleaders often complain that I don't play enough lead.

As for the philosophy of adding more pedals and levers to the E9th, I think that we have an impasse there. I feel that, at 5+5, I've reached my personal limit on the E9th. I'm no minimalist, but attempts to go beyond 5+5 have boggled my brain. I finally decided that this is my limit. The mathematical possibilities of music are infinite, even with "just" 5 pedals and 5 knees.

I do have several E9th pedal combinations that are "strummable", but they don't give me the full set of nicely voiced majors, minors and sevenths found in the SS tuning. It's not a "limitation" of the E9th - it's a "difference".

Here's the SS variant that I played:
<center>

</center>
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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b2005.gif" width="78 height="78">Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Williams D-12 E9, C6add9, Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop S-8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, C6 or A6) My Blog 
<div style="display:none">[This message was edited by Bobby Lee on 05 October 2006 at 08:18 AM.]

Steve Howard · Post by **Steve Howard** » 18 Oct 2006 3:44 am

Just an update on this thing...

My quest for finding a Robert Randolph'ish tuning has been difficult. I wanted to modify my non-pedal 10 string neck I originally had as a C6 to something more "rock". Well, I have tried two fairly different E7 tunings and have been pretty disappointed in the capability of moving around the neck. no pedals really confines me to one fret it seems. What is funny is I felt like my C6 tuning allowed me to move around the neck more effortlessly.

Long story short, I started exploring the E9 pedal neck I have and think that I am going to try and make it work, much like I have heard Paul do with his when he plays with "The Players". Bobby has some great suggestions when changing the copedant is a possibility to you. For me it is not. So with some new perspective, I am able to bring the seventh out on the E9 pretty easily. The E7 tuning is there on E9 with the low D string and high D# with a half note drop knee lever. The chord tones are not ordered quite as well as an E7 tuning has, but the ability to use the pedals greatly makes up for it.

This also allows me to put my C6 back on the bottom non-pedal neck and get some lower register stuff on that. And in the past I seemed to be able to get some nice pentatonic stuff out of it without any pedals. I just didn't have the 7 that I wanted so bad. And since it is a non pedal neck, if I want to make a one or two string variation to the tuning I can very easily.

I appreciate all the input, I think Bobby has found a nice way to get the best of both worlds, but being a young pup on steel guitar, I thought I better stick with some standard copedants so I don't completely screw myself up if this rock thing doesn't work out for me.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 18 Oct 2006 6:38 am

Steve,for what it's worth, sacred steel started out on 6-string lap steels, and still most of the players use those. I think they mostly use a straight major chord open tuning, either with a 1 on top or a 5 on top. They tune to a number of different keys depending on their personal preference for playing along with keys comfortable for vocalists. I believe one of the early CDs that Bob Stone helped put out discusses a few of these. Maybe a few of the older guys that were influenced by Hawaiian tunings in the '20s and '30s used 6th or 7th tunings, but many use straight major chord tunings.[This message was edited by David Doggett on 18 October 2006 at 07:40 AM.]