The Steel Guitar Forum

I want to start learning to play C6 but I'm not sure how to tune it. I can use Jeff Newman's method like I do on E9 but the big question is:

Do I temper tune the C6 like I do the E9? If so, can someone create a chart showing which strings to chime to?

Thank you,
Larry

I haven't made a chart or a system up but what I do on C6 is start with my C strings tuned a bit sharp like my E strings on the E9 neck. Then I get my C major triad in tune. That covers the C,G and E strings. Then I tune the F string to the C string. I get the A strings in tune by making sure they sound good in the open F major triad. For the D string (if you have one) I tune to the G string. The tricky part is how you deal with the A and E strings. They function as the thirds of the open triads so its a matter of taste and how you hear. I personally tune them just a hair sharp of beatless.

I chime at the normal 7th or 5th fret to get my 4ths and 5ths. I chime at the 4th fret to get my thirds.
Example: Chime the 4th fret on your middle C string and chime the 5th fret on the next up E string. Like I said before I bring my E string up just a bit from there.

I am not sure what it would be on a tuner. Next time I am around somebody that has a good one I'll check.

When I was just getting going on the C neck I tuned it pretty much straight up and it worked fine.

Thanks Bob. What about the pedals. To which strings do I tune those? I've got an 8x4 Emmons setup.

Here's as good a place to start as any:

http://www.jeffran.com/tuning.php

I'll be a total contrarian here and say it is much easier to tune the whole shooting match to 440. You will notice a few beats in the 3'rd intervals here and there but overall it's much easier for me to play C6 'straight up' than E9. YMMV

What Jay said. Maybe it depends on the kind of music you're playing, and the instruments you're playing with. For me, I play a lot of dense jazz chords, and there are so many complex chord interactions all over the place that I can't make it work any other way than straight up, especially with five pedals and five knee levers to tune on the C6th neck .

Every time I sit at someone else's guitar that is tuned "just" on the C6th, it always sounds out of tune to me.

My 2 cents-I used to tune the C6th neck to equal temperament-That changed the day I went to the Peterson strobe factory to first try out the Jeff Newman presets that were just being introduced into the VS-II and V-SAM tuners-I played through several tunes at equal then we retuned my Emmons P/P to the Newman settings using the strobe-and I played the same four or five tunes again-all who were listening (including myself) agreed that my C6th playing was noticeably better sounding in just intonation using the Newman settings-I retuned the back necks on all my guitars after that and have no intention of going back to equal (440) temperament

I use meantone temperament on my C6th. The method is described in my article: A Well Tempered C6th Pedal Steel.

Jerry Gleason wrote:What Jay said. Maybe it depends on the kind of music you're playing, and the instruments you're playing with. For me, I play a lot of dense jazz chords, and there are so many complex chord interactions all over the place that I can't make it work any other way than straight up, especially with five pedals and five knee levers to tune on the C6th neck .

Every time I sit at someone else's guitar that is tuned "just" on the C6th, it always sounds out of tune to me.

Jerry, I use your approach, aka straight up, on C6 as also go for lots of "jazz" chords.
(Not so on E9 where i use a form of JI where the chords are more "common" or "sweet".)

Have you tried b0b's approach to meantone? If so with what result?

bOb,
What do you think about this? Do you play lots of "jazz" chords on C6?

Thanks for everyone's thoughts.... bob

Bob Merritt wrote: bOb,
What do you think about this? Do you play lots of "jazz" chords on C6?

No, I don't play jazz much at all. I agree with Jerry's approach. If you want every string, pedal and lever to sound reasonably in tune with every other string, pedal and lever, no matter how you combine them, equal temperament ("straight up") is the safest way to go.

I play a more limited set of chords, which is why meantone works for me.

What Jay & Jerry said works for me, ET all the way. With my pedals and/or mental problems, any string can and sometimes will be the root note. I tried b0b's tuning and some thing or another was 16 cents out, even the cats noticed that.

Natural temperament is for folk songs.

Bach didn't write the "Well-Tempered Clavier" for steel, but if he had done it would point out a real problem for steel players playing with other musicians...

You have no frets, so it's mostly in the ear, and we don't hear in modern tuning, which is at it's best averaging out the tuning in each scale to allow a keyboard player to play in all 22 scales without retuning.

As one used to playing lutes, citterns, hummels, etc., and having to retune or move the frets each time you change key, I'm astonished that a modern orchestra works at all ! It's all compromise.

Alan,
Steel guitars do not have the same problems as keyboards because we can move the bar. The key of C has the exact same intervalic relationships as the key of Eb on he pedal steel. Keyboards and fretted instruments do not have that luxury.

Also orchestras do not compromise. They play in tune. Except for a couple fixed pitch instruments like harp and celeste (which do not paricularly sustain) there is nothing to compromise with.