The Steel Guitar Forum

I mostly play rock and blues with some country influence and have just been playing in open e since I am a newbie to the lap steel. Can c6 be used effectively for those styles of music? I like the idea of getting the range of chords but can you still pull off blues and rock licks on it? are there any other good tuning suggestions?

Another good tuning for rock/blues would be Low Bass Open G (low-to-hi; D-G-D-G-B-D).

As to C6 for rock/blues.....yes it can be used for that. Forumite Josh Cho has a YouTube video up somewhere that demonstrates him doing some Allman Bros stuff. George Piburn has something too that rocked out pretty good.

I don't know if rock/blues lays out on the fretboard quite as well as Open E or Open G does.....I'll let the C6 guys weigh in on that.

Clayton Pashka wrote:I mostly play rock and blues with some country influence and have just been playing in open e since I am a newbie to the lap steel. Can c6 be used effectively for those styles of music? I like the idea of getting the range of chords but can you still pull off blues and rock licks on it? are there any other good tuning suggestions?

Absolutely, it is awesome for Blues and Rock, if you take the time to find your way around on it. You will lose the Elmore James/Duane Allman licks, but it will give you an opportunity to play new stuff.

Hi Mike. Thanks for the response. I guess I will just have to dive in. I don't play just blues/rock though, it's a bit of a mix with some country and folk thrown in so I imagine that c6 is the most versitile. I started with e since I am a guitar player and figured it would be easier to grasp picking and bar techniques and not worry about where I am on the fret board. I should also say that I have checked out all you youtube stuff and man you can play!

I have been using E7 tuning on one of my 6 string lap steels (BDEG#BE low to high)which I like for blues because of the ease of grabbing dominant7 chords for flat 5 substitutions etc, whist still retaining that full E chord on the top four strings for basic elmore james type phrases.
I have also recently been dropping the D down to C# to get an E6 tuning and being able to grab minor chords as well, excellent for tunes like Ghostriders etc.( This gets you into exploring a 6 tuning (which is a revelation after open E, but still retaining a string group that you are familiar with.)
So if I only have space for one steel I can cover lots of options with only the need to detune 1 string.
Cheers - hope this is helpful