The Steel Guitar Forum

I spoke with Doug about this and he said that they pretty much have the tuning worked out now. Doug and Gary Adams have a new CD called, Two Heads, One Neck, and they have the copedent on the inside of the CD. You can order the CD from Doug's web page. The CD is 15.00 plus 3.00 postage.

The string sets developed for this new tuning will be available at Jagwire Strings in the near future. http://www.jagwirestrings.biz

This is very interesting and I'm sure sounds great if Doug and Gary to great musicians are involved.

Terry Wood

To quote Gary when he was starting to get into this tuning...."This tuning speaks in tongues....you need an interpreter".....not for the feint of heart.

WOW THIS IS PRETTY DARN COOL!!!

I noticed that strings 6,7,8,9,& 10 are the same as standard E9th so there's a "comfort zone" to fall back on if you start getting lost while experimenting with this setup. I wish I had another guitar to try it out on but I need mine like it is for a while...............JH in Va.

Jerry Hayes wrote:I noticed that strings 6,7,8,9,& 10 are the same as standard E9th so there's a "comfort zone" to fall back on if you start getting lost while experimenting with this setup. I wish I had another guitar to try it out on but I need mine like it is for a while...............JH in Va.

I know a lot of people who aren't all that comfortable on 6,7,8,9 & 10. They skip over 7 and 9.

I can't wait to see the pedal changes.

This fancy newfangled name "hexatonic" seems to be descriptive of the old Quartal system that was around over 20 years ago.

It constitutes chords and harmonies built around 4ths rather than 3rds. McCoy Tyner and Miles Davis dabbled heavily into the style, and a number of others used it on and off over the years.

It's interesting that E9 was adopted as the basis of the tuning rather than C6.

Because it's based on a diatonic system there can be a number of variations of a set of stacked 4ths depending on the key. For instance, a chord made up of perfect 4ths would be different depending on the key . In the key of C a Quartal chord might be C F B(natural) E(natural). And in G would be C F# B E. Key of F would have the B flatted but not the E. In Eb it would be C F Bb Eb.

That is probably why Doug Jernigan describes his setup as "7 or 8 knee levers .... 5 foot pedals.... about half of the knee levers will be split tuned".

When playing this vogue I actually tried using a setup with pedals and knees tuned specifically for the chords needed. Couldn't make it happen. The music side is not exactly simple. Adding the extra mental processing for the complex knee/pedal system at the same time was brain overload.

Actually there's a lot available with just the standard E9 setup using the regular knees plus bar slants. Sometimes it becomes necessary to combine a knee, pedal and slant to get the chord. The 10th string needs retuning or dropped on a pull.

Four finger grips are a necessity. Four note chords make the style what it is. Three notes of Quartal harmony like regular triads have no real color. It's the equivalent of playing in C with standard triads - CEG, GBD, FAC for the I V IV. Not quite there. Add an extra note to the chord and everything changes.

This stuff isn't for everybody. Done properly it requires knowing the names of all the notes in all positions. It doesn't require reading music, but it helps since a lot of jazz solos have been transcribed. It takes a pretty good ear to figure them out by just listening.

The first thing I thought when I looked at the tuning was 'man there are a lot of 4th stacks on that puppy'. Then I read the reference to McCoy Tyner.

That's a really interesting tuning. I'm interested to hear what Doug and company will do with it. Definitely the most interesting jazz tuning since Hal Rugg's back in the 80s.

hasnt anyone got this latest record of this tuning yet?
i am relearning to play with 4 picks but leavitt did a nice job on 3 note chord approximations with great voice leading always preserving the tritone relationship between the the 3rd and 7th

After reading this article, I went out and bought a McCoy Tyner recording to see if it would help me fathom the musical possibilities. What I learned is that I have a lot to learn! This is exciting stuff!

Anyone heard the Doug and Gary CD yet? I'm just trying to preallocate some of my forthcoming economic stimulus rebate. Doug's new site doesn't list it.

This diatonic tuning and hexa thing for pedal steel has been around for a long time.
I worked a long time trying to work out a pedal and knee lever diatonic set up on paper for a 10 string pedal steel and I never could come up with anything practical split tune or not. You would need to know a lot of theory to even conceder this tuning.
Looks like they are getting close but the set up is going to be their secret for a long long time.
I've never seen them smile while playing this tuning.

What does it avenge? Perhaps it avenges the non symetrical chord grips of the standard double neck tunings. Using for example the 10,8,6, of E9 starting on the 12th string of this tuning and continuing this pattern gives you Emajor, Dmajor, Emajor,Dmajor,Emajor,Dmajor,Emajor,Dmajor. Don

Anyone seen a copedant for this yet?

Best regards,
...z

The CD is nice. The Avenger tuning is something to study. My favorite cut on the CD is #4 - Lonely Street. Reminds me of Julian Tharpe. I also seem to hear some D9th sounds, as well as, E9th & C6th on the CD. Very good study project here by two fine players.

^^^BUMP^^^

with something as far out as this headed up by two crazy genius', i'd have expected more than 'the cd is nice' ! wow.

Well, I found the tuning on the Jagwire strings site, but without the pedals/knees, not much help... The spacing in this text will screw up when I post this, but you should be able to figure it out.

Avenger 12 String Set by Doug Jernigan and Gary Adams
.012 .014 .015 .017 .020 .022p
F# E D B A G#

.026 .030 .034 .038 .046 .060
F# E D B A E

I've finally learned a few things about the "standard" 12 string on mine, but there are a few things (or more) I don't like, a couple of virtually worthless pedals, i.e.

...z

These specialty sets can be found here:

http://jagwirestrings.tripod.com/catalog/i197.html

The tuning is here, but not the pedal/knee lever tunings. Maybe Doug will chime in on this?

Zeek Duff wrote:Anyone seen a copedant for this yet?

Best regards,
...z

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=135581

Hey, no problem! Ummmm.

Ed Alkire used a E-A tuning 60 years ago.
E-C#-B-A-G#-G-F#-F-E-C#. 10 string.None pedal.Some players using this tuning added pedal changes. A player in Wheeling VA. used it, he was the staff,steeler player for WWVA show in the 60's Joe

This tuning appears to close up the wide intervals on the current popular Chord based tunings and creates the opportunuty to form tighter intervals which would increase the availability of extended chords, scales, harmonies, etc. Endless possibilities.

Along with a couple of knees I don't have, it looks like a lot a work. A lot of work. Lots. And, lots...

If anyone else does this "swap" let us know how it goes, okay?

...z