The Steel Guitar Forum

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It is still a very popular tuning though not with contemporary steel players. It is probably the most used tuning by bottleneck players (tuned down 1 whole step to DGDGBD because scale lenth is longer and tension is greater with longer scale). Since I started with that tuning it has always been my point of reference. The intervals on the top 3 strings (1,3,5) are the same as high C6 or A6 so there is something in common there.

I play that tuning sometimes.

I still use it on some hawaiian & classic country songs.

I built a lapsteel guitar that I designed & built a changer into. It has four different tunings. The old hawaiian Amaj. low bass tuning you mention is one of them.

The other tunings are E,--A6th,--& C6th.

There are still many steelers who enjoy the A Major Tuning...however, most adjust to A6th. FYI: In the early days, (up to around 1942), if you popped into any music store seeking a folio method to learn the Hawaiian Steel Guitar, the ONLY tuning available was the A Major. Nick Manoloff, Kamiki, Wm. S Smith, et al were hot sellers. O'ahu and Bronson and others commenced publishing folios for C#m and E7th during the mid-forties. Today, it is next to impossible to find ANY instruction books in any tuning in any music store...(at least around here!)

http://www3.telus.net/public/lake_r/

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All my early Hawaiian music was written for the A, high bass tuning.

"So would you guess that most of the artists on those vintage Hawaiian steel masters CDs are using the low bass A tuning?"
Not necessarily. All depending upon the age of the original recording....ie, very old stuff recorded in the 1920 era, (usually 2 guitars), were probably in the A Major tuning. To my limited knowledge, (also feeble), Sol Ho'opi'i pioneered the C#m during the jazz era.

http://www3.telus.net/public/lake_r/