The Steel Guitar Forum

Well, I have had both determination and a long career playing in front of people for money .

After 34 years of making a fulltime living in studios, on both sides of the glass, my only observation is 1)there are no rules and 2) see number one. If straight up works for you, that's great.

However, for me, it just doesn't work, and never will. I've worked with all the players I mentioned, and it's interesting to watch all of them tune by ear, to sweet sounding open chords. Heck, I've never seen Sonny use a tuner--he just gets an E from the piano and tunes it up. It is very interesting to listen to them do it while "soloed" in the control room--it's where you can really hear the sweetness of JI before they start playing. And it fits perfectly into a track with acoustic piano and guitars, hammonds and the like. And at the end of the day, that's all I care about--charts, graphs, theory mean nothing to me--only a sweet, in-tune track . I have experimented several times with stright up, and could not get close to making it work in a track, but that's me...

No slam at all from me--if you can walk into that situation and sound in-tune straight up, awesome, that's all I care about. No rules, just bottom line... .

While I would never presume to question your credentials I'm still skeptical.

I've asked this before and I'm a gunna ask it agin: what happens to those 'sweet' sounding flatted G#s when you/they move to a different inversion? Or do you/they only play the 'open' chord inversion? If so, do you/they retune for the AB pedal inversion? Then do you/they only play in THAT inversion? What about the AF inversion? What about the Eb inversion?

You see, I use ALL these inversions in EVERY song so I'm kind of handicapped into using straight up tuning otherwise some of the thirds are WAY flat and round and round we go!

Are you egging me into saying that those guys you mentioned don't know what they're doing? Lord knows I've made enough enemies that a few hunnert more can't possibly matter, eh?

And don't even get me started on the lame@$$ HS show-choir thing I just attended at the school; OH MY GAWD!!! No tuners were involved in the performance at any time...
*sob*

John, Indeed I sensed none.

Maybe just the frustration that has come up in the hundreds of these posts where too many people have been told what they "must like to hear.

I've said it a dozen times, that my favorite listening playing was done with steel guitars that I can hear are out of tune, ET JI TU SOL, or otherwise. I'd take Jimmy Day on the old Willie Nelson Records over half the others I and others have named.

What I said about Determination is true, and if you have it, you will not ever be successfuly discouraged. I haven't been in 25 years of playing much more than the median thousand gig/lifetime playing population.

There was a year or two, or an instance or two where anyone with a concience, any valor, or common sense would have quit.

Two Months was as long as I ever made it, and that was to finish up a 63 panhead. I kicked it until I nearly ruined my knee jount, and went back to weekly gigs.

Yup. You must win. There are no rules. If you find yourself losing, refer to rule number one.

There is no explaining the magic of playing what's in your heart, and having it come out above the din of a live band. Even when you are tuned a little differently.

It's like flying in your dreams.

I think the reason we strive for it constantly is like in our "flying dreams" which I still seem to have many of.

In them I've noticed there is no way to attain a lofty perch and "hang out". You also know instinctly that you are going to fall back to the firmament. You don't care.It's the "flying" that matters.

I know I feel it a lot more in a live paid gig, than in the studio, so most of the stuff I've done, gets flipped out a car window. Good or otherwise. That's just me though.

I've always found it simpler to tune to a tuner, and go for it.

So shoot me now, cause I'm gonna keep doing it..



EJL

Give up on beatless tunings. It was abandoned in the Renaissance.

Just notice, whether you're playing steel or piano, it's not the beats you hear, it's the notes. Playing style will accommodate whatever method you use for tuning.

Ever heard a piano tuning demonstration?
It's as exciting as watching a massage demonstration. Develop your own method, and play.

I used to get told "you are out of tune" when I tuned basically straight up "(0) with a tuner. I went to the original Jeff Newman chart (with the root strings at 0 not the later +2.5hz) and no one ever told me I was out of tune after that.

I now have a VS-II tuner and I've programmed my own settings into the two memories for the E9th and C6th. They are basically the original Newman settings with modifications so my guitar is in tune with itself. The factory programmed E9th and C6th are of no use to me in the VS-II.