The Steel Guitar Forum

I have tinkered around with putting some of Ralph Mooney's pedal movements on my standard (Nashville-Emmon's)arrangement E9th. I like what I hear. A fellow steel player told me this: "Neither one of us has the guts to tune up, and arrange pedals and knee levers exactly like Ralph Mooney." The first thing I said was: "That would cause me to lose a lot of things I know on the standard E9th setup." Still yet-- I am tempted to arrange one of my guitars as close to Mooney's setup as I can. Just wondering if any of you have tried this? You lose your cromatic strings, but gain some different stuff on the low end. From the charts I see, Mooney had 7 pedals and 3 knee levers. I may be wrong, but the really famous stuff Ralph Mooney was known for was done on the first 6 strings. I personally think having each pedal only move one string can have adavantages. I am wondering how many have tried to tune up like Mooney, and what happened?

I've been threatening to try a Mooney tuning as well. I've been experimenting with an 8 string long scale Fender with some Mooney changes and really like the one string per pedal. It is really snappy and precise. I don't have the high G# because they snap almost immediately. It's really a lot of fun and I can do the intro to Bottle let Me Down and Swingin' Doors note for note without the G#. Both feet on the pedals!

You lose your cromatic strings

It's been good for me because it's forcing me to learn more about the middle and low strings. I spent too much time on those top strings.

Keith call Al Brisco. he has a vidio all about Ralf

Dave, you need the G#--trust me. I love it when it is lowered to the G. Would love to see your diagrams of the Bottle Let Me Down and Swinging Doors. Teddy, I have the Al Brisco video and book. AL Brisco does a wonderful job, but Al is not tuned up exactly like Ralph was.

Dave, you need the G#--trust me

I know that. Poppin' that G# to A is half of all Mooney licks but the guitar doesn't handle it. I have an F# on top and pull it up to G with a knee lever so I get the funky flat 7ths no problem. Anyway I'm not even trying to be Ralph but just trying something different and simple. I do love his playing and he is an inspiration. I added a pedal that lowers E's to Eb. I haven't taken it on the band stand yet and when I do no one will care that the high G# is missing since I play with hippie bands! As long as I can squeeze into that major third I'll be ok...

F#(G)
E
B(C#)
G#(A)
F#
E
D
B

Here's a video I made before I added the knee lever. I'll eventually make some of those Merl intros that need the lever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf_PiOep3Ug

The first pedal steel I played on was old Fender that Music Unlimited in San Leandro loaned me while my first ZB was being built. No rollers at the nut, and the 3rd string would break the very first time or two you used the pedal. Went all the way down to I believe was a .008 and they still broke after a few times of hitting the pedal. I mostly played it as a non-pedal E9 tuning as it was really a crappy guitar (not maintained well). With a good setup and some rollers at the nut, it would have been a fine guitar.

Mine has roller nut and bridge. The non rollers actually are easier on the G# in my experience, and Ralph played his without rollers believe it or not.

On my first 1000 I tuned to a D chord and still used chromatics. My first string was of course an E. My third was a F# and I think I used a .014 for it. That solid bridge was a very bad idea. I wore grooves in them, had them hard chromed and still grooved. Got a lot of singing.

The solid bridges and nut had superior tone but I agree that they had their drawbacks too.

Sorry to drift off topic Keith!

Dave the tuning and pedal and knee arrangement you have posted is correct. The GFI guitar company is about 20 miles from where I live, plus I have a friend working there. They gave me the set-up chart for the last guitar they built for Ralph. What they gave me corresponds to the chart you have posted. GFI has Ralph's last guitar, the GFI guitar. I think Ralph's wife returned the guitar. They have been wanting me to come play it. I may just do that.

I've used Mooney's tuning for several years. I have his changes on pedals 4-8, and use 1-3 for C6. It was tricky at first, but now It's what's natural to me. I feel that it helps me to be more succinct in what I play.
On a long-scale Fender, you eliminate half the pulls on the high string, which helps a lot with string life. The minor to major change on the G# string is super-soulful. Also, because of the split pulls between the octave, you can get some really beautiful jazz chord voicings that are more difficult on standard E9. There's an endless supply of music in that tuning.

Dave Zirbel wrote:Mine has roller nut and bridge. The non rollers actually are easier on the G# in my experience, and Ralph played his without rollers believe it or not.

Really? I would have never thought that. It could be too, that the one they loaned me had burrs or something causing the breakage. I didn't know about things like that in those days. As I said, it wasn't in very good shape, but I traded in my Nation Tripe 8 in on the ZB, so I need something, and they were willing to just loan it to me. My ZB came pretty quick as I remember, maybe 2 months max. The Fender played smooth as I remember and sounded killer. I just couldn't keep a 3rd string on it. Memory is a little hazy right now, but I think that sometimes it would pop when I just got it up to pitch. Can't remember for sure, but I think it always broke at the nut. Probably had burrs there. I do know that many have played these guitars and they couldn't have had the problems I had or they would have never stayed with it.

I think the idea that you need Moon's setup to play like him is a false assumption. IMHO, probably 95% of everything he did is right there on the standard E9th setup. His "style" was more the way he thought, and his use of open strings and moving harmonies, than it was any particular setup. If you have a long scale Fender, and tune down to D or a D9th, even his signature licks in their original keys are easy if you use a capo at fret 2.

Rather than getting hung up on a tuning setup or certain move, try to learn his simplistic "mindset" and his picking technique. That's what Jeff Newman was doing here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9vqJTuoAQU

sounds like he's just playing the style of that era to me.

chris ivey wrote:sounds like he's just playing the style of that era to me.

That's kinda like saying"James Burton sounds like he's just playing the style of that era"...

Jimmy Crawford has been quoted as saying that back in the late'50s,all the steel players on the road with the big stars would go to the record shops looking for Buck Owens records so they could play them on their cheap little record players and try to figure out what Mooney was doing...he was a big reason that WAS the style of that era.

i'm not disputing that he is largely responsible for the style.

this sounds like the path that many of us in the 70's were following...partly because this is the sound that the basic e9 pedal setup did naturally.

now i've got the whole dreaded hinson gang after me?

chris ivey wrote:sounds like he's just playing the style of that era to me.

Gotta go with that as well.. Yes Moon was responsible for much of "that style", but I can say this. By the mid 60's a lot of players were using that staccato E9 style.. Lots of examples on Youtube.. Saw a guy from canada playing an old Fender 1000 steel on YT, circa 63-64 and he was very similar to Moon..

The " west coast" style was coming on strong by the mid 60's and although Moon was a BIG part of it, there were several others... bob

chris ivey wrote:sounds like he's just playing the style of that era to me.

Gotta go with that as well.. Yes Moon was responsible for much of "that style", but I can say this. By the mid 60's a lot of players were using that staccato E9 style.. Lots of examples on Youtube.. Saw a guy from canada playing an old Fender 1000 steel on YT, circa 63-64 and he was very similar to Moon..

The " west coast" style was coming on strong by the mid 60's and although Moon was a BIG part of it, there were several others... bob

I think the idea that you need Moon's setup to play like him is a false assumption.

I don't Keith or myself said we were trying to play like Mooney, we're just interested in the tuning. It is a little different than the standard. For me, experimenting with alternatives helps me learn a lot about all tunings. Again, I really like the feel of one string pull per pedal. Being comfortable helps my playing.

Richard, I had a 1000 that popped G# with a fixed bridge as well but I got a few hundred pulls out of it. A lot of it has to do with burrs on the bridge. The rollers snap immediately I think because it sit higher and has a sharper angle..maybe?

Bob Carlucci wrote:

chris ivey wrote:sounds like he's just playing the style of that era to me.

Gotta go with that as well.. Yes Moon was responsible for much of "that style", but I can say this. By the mid 60's a lot of players were using that staccato E9 style.. Lots of examples on Youtube.. Saw a guy from canada playing an old Fender 1000 steel on YT, circa 63-64 and he was very similar to Moon..

The " west coast" style was coming on strong by the mid 60's and although Moon was a BIG part of it, there were several others... bob

Mooney was playing that style in the'50s...

Could be Dave. I just know the one they loaned me was in bad shape. Almost un-playable.

I once asked Ralph why he didn't play the good stuff he played with early Buck Owens, Mel Haggard, and Wynn Stewart---when he played with Waylon. Ralph told me why in four words, he said: "It would not have horked." Once I thought about it, Ralph was right. His style with Waylon was different because it had to be.

Steve Hinson wrote:

chris ivey wrote:sounds like he's just playing the style of that era to me.

That's kinda like saying"James Burton sounds like he's just playing the style of that era"...

steve, i was referring to jeff newman here.

So was it an amorphously developed "style of an era" or was Mooney (or someone else?) an original whose personal style was widely influential, a la Charlie Parker?

My personal take on the Jeff Newman example, absent this debate, would have been that he's certainly trying to channel Mooney. But I wasn't around country music back in those days, so what do I know?

Heck, I can't even type something without making a mistake. To correct my error:
Here is what Ralph said: "It would not have worked."