Bill Leavitt-a brief history & Christmas TAB

Mike Ihde · From: Boston, MA

With all the talk about Bill's tuning lately, I thought it would be a good time to re-tell the story of how it came to be for those who are new to it.
Here's the blurb that's inside my CD "A Different Slant" to start the story...
Bill Leavitt was Chairman of the Guitar Department at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass. for 25 years. He built what has become the largest assemblage of guitar students and faculty in the world. Throughout his years of teaching and writing for the guitar, he never lost his love for the lap steel, which he played in his youth. About 4 years before his death in 1990, he invented a new tuning for the 6 string lap steel (low to high: C#, E, G, Bb, C, D). This unusual tuning which I dubbed "The Leavitt Tuning" for lack of a better name, allowed him to play 3 and 4 note voicings of the complex chords found in jazz standards. He wrote over 70 arrangements of Hawaiian and Jazz songs. I promised him I would let the steel players around the world know of his wonderful creation. By performing at steel shows around the globe, I have begun to spread the word and hope that this recording will not only entertain and instruct, but keep BillÕs music and memory alive.

The rest of the story...
A student came in for his guitar lesson one day back in 1985 or so and showed Bill an old beat up Dickerson lap that he had just bought at a yard sale for $7. (The steel is pictured on the cover of my CD) Bill was thrilled to see it because it was exactly the same as the steel he had as a kid back in Ohio when he took the Oahu Steel Guitar School lessons. The student, seeing how happy Bill was to see an old friend, gave him the steel. Together, we fixed it up, put on a new fretboard and rewired some bad connections. Bill knew about Pedal Steel because I was playing it and showed him all the chords available on it. He didn't like the size, weight, complexity etc. of the double neck Emmons (9 & 10) I had so he started playing around with his new lap. He always liked to write chord solos for guitar of the jazz standards that he loved so dearly so naturally that was the first area he explored with the lap. He soon discovered how limited the standard tunings were for all the jazz voicings he was looking for, so he started experimenting with new tunings. He told me one day, that he had a dream about this diminished tuning and started working on it. Soon he had a handful of arrangements that were amazing in their chord complexity. I would come in his room at 9am and he'd be there playing Misty or Moonlight in Vermont and I'd hear all these hip jazz chords and yet he was NEVER slanting the bar. I couldn't believe it!
In the next year or so he wrote over 70 arrangements of jazz and Hawaiian tunes before he came down with TB, was hospitalized and passed in 1990. When I last saw him in the hospital, 2 days before his death, he was still working on new arrangements. I told him then, that if anything happened to him, I would try to let the steel guitar world know about his wonderful creation.
From playing at the ISGC and Gerry Hogan's Steel show in London as well as other conventions around the east coast and of course the Forum, people have come to embrace the tuning as unique and very musical. Even crusty old Jerry Byrd said it was interesting and that's high praise from him.
It does my heart good to hear Roy and Bill Hatcher and others continue to expand the tuning's possibilities. I'm sure Bill Leavitt would be proud of all the good music he has helped create through his work.

I have Bill's arrangement of "I'll Be Home For Christmas" available for free. Just send me an e-mail and I'll attach it and send it back to you.
Merry Christmas to all.
Mike
thephotodoctor@comcast.net

Bill Hatcher · From: Atlanta Ga. USA

Mike. Thanks for the story and thanks for the arrangment!!

Roy Thomson · From: Wolfville, Nova Scotia,Canada

I'm away for the weekend and just noticed the offer. Great Mike!.... send it on
roythomson@eastlink.ca

Richard Ballou · From: California, USA

Mike,

I ordered your book and CD with my membership and I am enjoying both. Fantastic !!! for one not being a great musician jazz was always out of reach for me. But after about a week on TENDERLY it was so great to get to play such a beautiful melody with a jazz sound & feel, thanks.

Looking forward to the christmas tab and maybe Roy and Bill will have some Chistmas tunes also.

Bill I would love to hear one of your Solo Guitar christmas arrangements that works on 6-string with us beginners in mind.

Thanks again !!!!!

Rich

Hey I know this is C6th but Gerald Ross has a great version of Sleigh Ride:
http://www.hsga.org/new_design/GeraldRoss.htm

Excellent backing track too !!!!!!!

ebb · From: nj

the genius of bill was to realize the minimum needed to express a vernacular of jazz. i am still studying his arrangements and hope to incorporate them with my own sensibilities before i no longer exist

AJ Azure · From: Massachusetts, USA * R.I.P.

What baffles me about this voicing (as ultra cool as it is) and it's close cousin C6 is why is the voicing so high? It seems to me that it would be better served lower and closer to guitar for a trhicker soun? Maybe for my purposes and not the traditional uses?

What caused the jump from low G, E or even high A or G all the way up to C and then for Leavitt a bit higher?

MUSICO · From: Jeremy Williams in Spain

I wouldnt bother worrying. To me a tuning is relative....C6 down 1/2 tone is B6. Up 1/2 a tone is C#6. All tabs work.

To play Leavitt down a couple of tones is just a matter of choosing guages and going for it. Many 6 string guitar players play standard tuning down a tone...or down 3 or 4 if its a baritone guitar.

The only thing I CAN think of is the desire to have as many nonwound strings in the tuning as possible to make sliding less noisy.

Jeremy Williams
Barcelona Spain

Russ Tkac · Posted 21 Nov 2005 12:24 pm

I believe so you can go to or from C6. Mike, please forward the arrangement to Tonecaster@aol.com

Thanks,
Russ

AJ Azure · From: Massachusetts, USA * R.I.P.

Oh not at all worried I play in G6 so I can get lower range comping sounds, My question was more academic. How did it go and why did it go so high as the standard tuning?

-A

Mike Ihde · From: Boston, MA

Maybe someone with more knowledge of the Lap Steel history can answer, but I think it's because the players wanted to keep the high string as "E" and went down from there in E7, A7, C6 etc. That way no one string had to be moved more than a minor third to prevent breaking it. If you want E7 and go down from high E to B, G#, E then D instead of B, then B instead of low E you now have the high tuning that you spoke of. Agreed, it lacks the bottom but it adds so much color voicing it that way that it's worth it. That's why players went to 8 string, to add back in the low notes that were lost in the change to close voiced 6 sting tunings.
Bill's tuning is, as you said, a close cousin to C6 and that makes it very easy to get to from any of the other standard 6 string tunings.

Stanford Lane · From: Oklahoma, USA

Hi Mike,
I have recently started learning the Leavitt tuning. I purchased the book and CD and it is great. Thank you for your work and this Christmas offer. I'll gratefully accept any instructional material or tab that you or anyone else has to offer for purchase. Please E-mail the Christmas tab to at:
coldiron7@yahoo.com

[This message was edited by Stanford Lane on 23 November 2005 at 08:20 AM.]

Russ Tkac · Posted 23 Nov 2005 9:31 am

Thanks for the TAB Mike. Very nice! Smile

Russ

Stanford Lane · From: Oklahoma, USA

Hi Mike,

I hope that this question isn't perceived as stealing your thread. But has anyone experimented with the Leavitt tuning on a 12 string non-pedal steel? Maybe using the traditional tuning on the first 6 strings and the some version in a lower octave on the bottom 6 strings?

Kris Oka · From: San Francisco, CA, USA

Hi Mike, thanks for sharing the Bill Leavitt story. I would like to try the tuning and would greatly appreciate the Christmas tab. Thank you. gokris@comcast.net

Wayne Cox · From: Chatham, Louisiana, USA * R.I.P.

MIKE, surely, being a pedal player, you have experimented with adding more strings to this tuning?! Do you have any recommendations for an 8-string tuning or 10,or 12,based on the basic 6-string Leavitt tuning? I'm not talking about adding pedals;just more strings,because of the pedal players who are rediscovering lap steel yet are already used to having more strings and a wider range. I have toyed around with this tuning just enough to gain a healthy respect for the genius behind it.
~~W.C.~~

Mike Ihde · From: Boston, MA

Wayne,
Others have experimented with adding an Eb on string one and a low E on string 8. A man named Ambrose did this...Bb C# E G A c e B which puts the Leavitt on strings 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 and 1. The cool thing is it keeps the old C6/A7 in the middle for all your regular tunes. It must be hard to get some of the odd string grips with that skip to string one but it has possibilities. Personnaly, I love it the way it is and have enough trouble playing these arrangements on 6 strings.

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