Best tuning for blues jam and band mix context?

[Luke Lamnea]

Hi there!
Brand new member here and very glad to be around such knowledgeable folks!
I’m fairly new to lapsteel coming from guitar and have been playing (learning) for about a year in Dobro G on an Gretsch Electromatic. I have loved it very much and have recently acquired a Duesenberg Lapsteel with the benders and capo to take things up a notch and get serious!

My immediate goal however is just to get out there playing with others in a band context and join the local blues jam community. My biggest concern at the moment is this: which tuning would be the most versatile both in terms of playability and frequency in a band mix (drums, bass, guitar, vocals and keys)?

I have started learning Open D on the Duesenberg, very nice for solo playing, but feel those low strings would be fairly redundant or muddy in a band mix? I ideally would like to sit somewhere tonally in the mix that isn’t stepping on anyone’s toes or would be mistaken for another ‘guitar’(another thought I had in regards to Open D/E as they are used by standard guitar players), it would be nice to have some level of distinct tonal separation.
I don’t really mind which tuning I go for initially as I will explore and learn many over the coming years, I just need my ‘starting’ point to get in a room with others and make a positive impression. If you all think Open D or Dobro G is the way to go or if there is any other more suitable options please let me know.
Any help or insight is greatly appreciated

Many thanks,
Luke

[Brooks Montgomery]

I like open D for blues and rock band tunings. I play capo’d at 2 for E tuning quite a bit, depending. I play a little E9 pedal steel and guitar and 8-string lap in E-13, so the fret board is kind of on auto-pilot for me when capo’d at E. I even stuck a couple colored dots at 14th fret for quick visual reference when capo’d at 2. Majority of the time though I just play open D.

I started on dobro in G (GBDGBD), and it taught me a lot and I jammed with a lot of bluegrassers which really helped my technique, but at heart, I’m a blues, rock, C&W, and “americana” fan, and most the people I play with are too.

One of my guitars is a Duesy Fairytale. I did install Seymour Duncan Antiquity humbuckers as per Troy Brenningmeyer’s advice, and I do like them better than the Duesenberg pick ups.

As others will tell you, you can do it all in G, so find what feels right for you.

I will say that the Duessenberg benders are string breakers, and D tuning seems to be the most stable when using them.

[Stephen Cowell]

If you want to jam with blues players then open E is great... capo'ing a Duesenberg is problematic, bending strings and capos don't mix well (just ask a Strat player).

Meghan Lovell does a great job in dobro G. Sonny Landreth does a great job in low bass G/A... but of course he's fingering behind the slide.

So really you're wanting to emulate slide blues... or you can single-top-string it like the Sacred Steel/Indians do it, in which case the tuning hardly matters.

So my vote is for open E... until you meet that band that tunes down a fret... hopeless. We're not sure if your Duesy has benders... open D with a capo gives lots of options otherwise. Sixth tunings are just right out... six-bombs don't sound good in blues or bluegrass.

Find someone you like and emulate their tuning... then go from there... IMO.

[Jack Hanson]

In my opinion, for a relative beginner, the best tuning to play anything is the one in which you're the most proficient.

[Chase Brady]

My favorite tuning for Blues/Rock is one recommended by the late Bobby Lee. Low to high G B D F# A D. He called it D/G. Strings 1-4 are open D and strings 4-6 are open G. Strings 1-5 are D6. You can play leads on 1-4 without tripping over that 6th note (the Hawaiian bomb), but you still have the relative minor chord on strings 3-5. Harmonized runs don't work out quite as well as in other 6th tunings, but those aren't used much in Blues/Rock.

[Peter Jacobs]

I stick to dobro G on lap steel because I started as a banjo player. For a long time, I used a variant (Gsus4) so I could easily suspend chords but dobro G is working for me. Low G tuning gets very boomy for me.

We play bluesy-rock and Americana, and I don't have issues with making things muddy or not having something useful to play. A lot of times, I'm playing in the key of D in G tuning. I capo a lot (for A, B and E) but I'm working on playing those keys without a capo, like Megan Lovell does.

[Brooks Montgomery]

If you want to jam with blues players then open E is great... capo'ing a Duesenberg is problematic, bending strings and capos don't mix well .

That’s, in my opinion, one of the major design flaws of the Duesenberg Fairytale. It is always capo’d. The capo is slid to the zero position to become the nut. The roller nuts are not in the “zero” position (they really don’t do anything), you can’t play it without the sliding nut/capo. I’ve asked Duesenberg why this design…..no answer. I guess they’re too invested in the sliding capo. I’d rather have no built-in capo, and functional roller nuts.

I rarely use the benders….
But i digress….

[Bill Sinclair]

I started out with open E but found that in a band setting with a bass player it muddied things up on the low end. Like Chase Brady, I was turned on to the E/A tuning by Bobby Lee. Same intervals as Chase uses but up a whole step, which I find a bit more intuitive coming from a guitar background than the D tuning. One reason it was an attractive transition for me is that I had already built up some comfort with licks, string pulls and harmonized 3rds on strings 1-4 of the open E tuning so I didn't have to give those up. I do have to say that listening to Megan Lovell play in dobro G certainly supports what Peter Jacobs says about that tuning. She sounds great and manages to stay out of the mud.

[Dave Mudgett]

I set up my 2 remaining 6-string lap steels (ca. 1950 Oahu and a '38 National Silvo) with heavy enough strings so that I can go anywhere between open E/A (lo-hi E B E G# B E or E A E A C# E, they are interchangeable) or one whole tone lower D/G (D A D F# A D or D G D G F# D) without the strings being way too tight or too limp for any of them. It's a compromise, but I need to be able to go up and down to give me some open strings in the primary keys I'm likely to play in. I pretty much set it up so that Eb/Ab are at a very comfortable 28-30 lb/string and then the E/A is in the low-mid 30s, and the D/G is in the mid-20s.

This is mostly what I use for slide guitar also. I'm coming from the point of view of the great masters like David Lindley, Sonny Landreth, Ry Cooder, Lowell George, Johnny Winter, Earl Hooker, Robert Nightnawk, and so on. I play slide guitar a lot, and I do miss fretting behind the slide when playing lap steel. But sometimes I genuinely prefer lap steel because of the tone - there really is a difference between an electric slide guitar, no matter how good, and the fat, heavy sustain of the typically shorter-scale lap steel with a heavy bar. The National Silvo is especially fat. Into a clean amp, it does actually make a not great but pretty tolerable approximation of a dobro at loud band volume with GBDGBD. I have sometimes used it with a Matchbro to get closer. But it's so great for blues that I use it mostly for that.

For 6th tunings, I have gotten to the point where I insist on at least 8 strings. I could deal with 7, but 6 just ain't enough for what I want to do and 7-strings are a lot harder to come by. And I like having 8 anyway.

[Luke Lamnea]

Wow, such a great wealth of insight and experience right here, so helpful and inspiring. The Duesenberg I have is the split king with capo and benders, stays in tune pretty well so far. I have joined Troy’s subscription and he has a load of content using it so I’m just starting to dig in. All of the content with the duesenberg is Open D, and seen as it is one a lot of you favour, I think I’ll just woodshed this tuning to get into the jams. But still experiment with the others to have options for other projects. I put the Gretsch into the Bobby Lee tuning, GBDF#AD, it’s very nice . Very cool having the relative minor right there. Although as I’m not very experienced in any tunings ‘boxes’ for leads I’m a bit lost haha. Plenty to learn!

[J D Sauser]

I have been dedicating myself to playing single-note stuff on C6th almost exclusively. Mostly over Blues and then Jazz-Blues and also practicing ii.V.I's and I.VI.ii.V.I's as Jazz Blues transitions from I to IV and into the V chord and evidently the "turnaround".
I use C6th exclusively, because that's the tuning I have decided to dedicate myself to exclusively. I use a "BE"-C6th with the only difference that I have a D instead of the low C as the 10th string.

Now, C6th, while carrying C Major, A minor, F Major and D minor and fragments of other chords plus some SUS or add9th chords I get from that D-root, it does NOT carry a Tritone Interval and thus no Dominant 7th chords without using the pedals. And I don't used my changes while playing single strings.

Yet, I've found that having to "get" certain tones from nearby frets, creates "motion" and "liveliness" that having "everything" lined up straight doesn't.

So, my conclusion would be to answer the OP's question by saying "ANY", preferably 4 note (or more) tuning will work.
Typically, non-pedal guitars will be tuned in 3rds (mainly Major and minor 3rd Intervals between adjacent strings). In most tunings this will result in a smaller interval somewhere not to go into "Upper Structures" after the 1st Octave.

Tunings in 3rds will generate 4 main playing positions spread over an octave of any chord (except Quartal Chords).
Every position will grow into differently shaped "Pockets" as BE called them or "Boxes" as some Blues Players call them.
In my case, having bottom root strings, C, A, F and D. I can spread them along the fretboard to crate a root position for any chord in 2 positions a minor 3rd apart (3 frets) and one 4 frets away and the last 2 frets away. An AVERAGE of every 3 frets.
As the Pockets off each of these positions grows thru practice and experimentation, they wind up "touching" each others to both sides, hence the fretboard is now "acquired".

If you want to play Blues using Chords and "double stops" without pedals or pedals, yes, you may want to tune to a Dom 7/9th chord.

... J-D.

[Chris Templeton]

I prefer a 1-5-1-4-5-1 tuning, which avoids the major 3rd and minor 3rd and the 4 can easily be changed to one, if need be.

[Jonathan Scherer]

This is an interesting topic.

Ten years ago I started with Open E on an Oahu Tonemaster. The following year I tried C6, then I got a National Dynamic, had it in Open E and the Oahu in E6.

Five years ago, got a Weissenborn style guitar and played it in Open D, eventually moved the Dynamic to Open D.

A year ago, got a dobro and have been playing it in
dobro G, switch back and forth with it and the Open D Dynamic.

Last month a keyboard playing friend with super tuned in ears, listened to our band at a gig, and said the Dynamic was muddy in the mix but the dobro was clear.

My bandmates say the Dynamic is always clear and cuts through the mix. What we hear is lower volume on stage than what goes out to the public.

Maybe I will try the Dynamic in dobro G sometime