Last winter I bought myself an expensive Duesenberg multibender, and installed it on another cheap HB/Rogue lapsteel.
C6 is fine, but these "moving" chords of pedal steels feel like another dimension,
and I wanted to see what's possible with a bender on a 6 string lap.
The intro of Teach Your Children inspires many people, Troy Brenningmeyer for instance, and he's doing more nice clips with the bender in open D.
And there's the genius Luc Cyrus Goetze with his GBDF#AD tuning.
However, after the days of first sensation, I felt a bit stuck. There had to be more than some tricks and licks on the upper strings.
A few weeks ago, I removed the strings of my bender lapsteel, ordered a set of GHS PF500 for 10 string pedal steel, and began a little journey.
After trying some tunings, the real mind changer came, when I realized that both benders didn't have to be in the same place all the time.
You can easily move them aside, and let them work on another string!
To make a long story short, that brought me to this C6/9 tuning.
The benders are now on string 2 and 4 from above, both with a range of 2 semitones.
If you use 1. the palm of your hand at the wrist and 2. the place where your little finger begins, you have 2 rather independant benders.
This C6/9bender tuning has connections with my common C6 playing, and after a week it feels like a rather familiar basis to work with.
(I would be completely happy, if there was a 7th string tuned C in the bottom, haha)
Here it is from high to low:
G . . . . 011
D > E . 015
C . . . . 017
A > B . 020
G . . . . N26
E . . . . N30
To give an impression, I made a little clip that's here:
https://youtu.be/ijvgzwpFJqM
I need to practice a lot more, but I hope it inspires some of you!
(and I think I'm going to mail Troy!
)Bert
