8 String Leavitt advice please

William Lake · Post by **William Lake** » 27 Dec 2010 6:19 pm

I will soon have a gold tone 8 string that I would like to devote to Leavitt tuning.
It seems there are a few options.
Two higher stings on top.. E & G?
Two lower stings on bottom.. Bb & F?
Or one of each.
I'm not too thrilled about a G on top. I find the G# on the E9 pedal whiny.
I'm sure the more learned among you have some concrete suggestions.
Roy Thomson? Are you there?

Stan Schober · Post by **Stan Schober** » 27 Dec 2010 9:34 pm

Roy uses an A and G as strings 7 and 8 if this picture from a previous thread is correct :

Rick Alexander used an Eb and C in those same positions.

Mike Ihde · Post by **Mike Ihde** » 27 Dec 2010 10:19 pm

Others use a 7th string Ab and a 8th string Eb.

Mike

Don't forget to check out my Leavitt Tuning CDs and books here...

http://mikeihde.com/pubs.htm

William Lake · Post by **William Lake** » 27 Dec 2010 10:46 pm

Thanks guys. I am leaning toward the low string add-ons. Looks like I have the right idea.
Mike I received both your courses just before Christmas. Thank you.
BTW I was a guitar teacher for many years and used Wm. Leavitt's Berklee books for most of my mature students. That is why I perked up when I saw the name.

Roy Thomson · Post by **Roy Thomson** » 28 Dec 2010 1:35 am

Hi William,

Hello Stan! In reference to the pic above that
tuning set-up was originally posted by "yours truly" and I still use it. For recording, I will put on a
guage 015 for the first string instead of the usual
014.

All the best

Don McClellan · Post by **Don McClellan** » 28 Dec 2010 4:31 am

Hello,
I use what I call the Hawaiian 8 string Leavitt tunning. Its just the standard 6 string C6/A7 from strings 2 through 7 but with a Maj7(B) on top and a dominant 7th (Bb)on the bottom. Its a very good tuning and I highly recomend it. I use this tuning in B6th instead of C6th but either way its good. Don

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 28 Dec 2010 8:38 pm

William Lake wrote:Thanks guys. I am leaning toward the low string add-ons. Looks like I have the right idea.
Mike I received both your courses just before Christmas. Thank you.
BTW I was a guitar teacher for many years and used Wm. Leavitt's Berklee books for most of my mature students. That is why I perked up when I saw the name.

go with the high strings
the leavitt is a tuning that does not lend itself to playing tonics in the low end. tried all that. go up. put that 6th up there. you will love it. your upper string can be anything you really like. extended leavitt has no rules...just whatever you like.

reason i say the non tonic low stuff is that the strength of the tuning is chords and not having to slant to get them. you really have to think the bass while you are playing rather than actually hitting a bass note. it was more advantageous the more strings i added to the original leavitt tuning to go up.

here is an mp3 of a tune using the leavitt tuning on an 8 string with two uppers added and i think i might have retuned the bottom string to give me the low Eb you hear. right now i have a 12 string extended leavitt that i have pitched down a couple of steps. the more i added to the top of it, it started getting a bit thin sounding so i just tuned the whole thing down a few. same intervals, just lower.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ek478ojhdmlf0fk

leavitt is really a great tuning

Stan Schober · Post by **Stan Schober** » 28 Dec 2010 9:03 pm

Nice tune , Bill !
I just really started with Leavitt , it's great for Jazz stuff.

Rick Schmidt · Post by **Rick Schmidt** » 28 Dec 2010 9:42 pm

Wow Bill! Thank you!

Bill Hatcher · Post by **Bill Hatcher** » 29 Dec 2010 5:40 am

here is another tune on 10 string extended leavitt that is pitched down. dont remember the exact tuning, but there is a low F and an open string Bb that i hear.

anyway, i will usually retune the bottom strings just to give me a bass note i might want to use. on this 10 string i added one string below the leavitt and three above it. http://www.mediafire.com/?ba4y4xc55a2t84e

when you add above, it gives you the ability to play melodies combined with the leavitt chords...a good combination.

i have put lots of these mp3s on the forum in the last few years. do a search of this section and find them if they interest you. they are still on the host site to download.

William Lake · Post by **William Lake** » 29 Dec 2010 5:59 pm

Well it seems I have some conflicting advice. I wanted to avoid changing strings over and over until I found what I liked, but I guess that is what I will have to do.
Thank you all for your input. It is appreciated.

Edward Meisse · Post by **Edward Meisse** » 1 Jan 2011 12:50 pm

I've not actually played the 8 string Leavitt. But I remember that when I was thinking about it I liked the idea of the F on top in order to get the F6 chord. I was considering both the C natural and the A on the bottom. I forget my reasoning there. But I agree that going too high results in weak tone.

Therman Jones · Post by **Therman Jones** » 9 Jan 2011 12:41 pm

I tuned my first string to F and the eighth string to A for my Nite Life video on You Tube. Works out great for those intro chords, etc.