The Steel Guitar Forum

I am a guitar player first and foremost but have been playing steel for the past year. I originally started with open E and it was easy to navigate and really started to sound cool when I was jamming with my buddies. Then I switched to C6 and it just isn't working as well with the type of music we play which is mostly blues and country based rock. I know C6 in the right hands works for everything and it is way more versatile of a tuning and I really want to stick with it. I do have to admit that playing in open E sounds way better with the band though. Please someone convince me to stick with the C6.

Many steel players know more than one tuning, but you've got to use what works for you in your situation. If you have a second steel, there's no reason why you couldn't keep one toe in the C6 waters.

Are you playing a 6 or 8 string? The 8 string gives you a lot more flexibility. Maybe what you need to do is woodshed different scales. It only has 6 strings, but go to looknohands.com and tune the guitar to C6 and mess around with chord and scale possibilities. Then change the tuning and try others and see what really works the best for you.

I'm a piano player and steeler, and I wanted a rig where I could do both, so I bought an 8 string nonpedaler and put it on my top rack above my piano on my keyboard stand. We play Texas Swing, old hippie country rock and some blues, and the C6 works great for all of them. I never realized how well it can handle so many E9 pedal parts. There are a few things I can't do, but it's a lot of fun, and yet I can rock out on all the bluesier stuff as well. I have a 6 string lap that I tune either to E13 or E7 that makes up for pretty much anything else I might need. But the C6 really does a pretty decent job as a stand alone tuning. It just takes a little experimenting, but it is a very versatile tuning.

Open E has lots to recommend it... for blues and rock, it's the go-to tuning for me. Either get a double-neck or get another lap steel... heck, get both.

You might think about putting one of your regular guitars into open E... slide guitar allows you to fret behind the slide, plus standing up while playing. Works for Sonny Landreth!

You might want to try E6. The same intervals as C6 only 3 frets higher. It will allow you to use some of the stuff you like in the E tuning, but you will have the 6th when you need it. Don Helms used the E6 for nearly all the stuff he recorded with Hank Williams.

Two lap steels = good idea. One for wide-interval open tunings (E and A, D and G) that love rock roots & blues.

And another one for narrow interval tunings that include a 6th, 7th or both. For instance, my six-string C6 can be retuned from CEGACE to C#EF#AC#E (A6) and DF#G#BC#E (E13)

no one should convince you to stick with anything tuning wise be it C6, Dobro,Leavitt, E13, A6 - you'll found what you like sooner or later I'm sure.
And as another member recently said here, if you stick with any tuning long enough you'll be able to play just about anything.
I came from guitar playing background as well, and C6 never did it for me entirely, though there are some excellent C6 players who I admire, just as there are those who play in A6 and so on. I found that C6 was nice, but didn't have the right sound for my ears, so I went to E6, which is C6 up a few tones but it makes all the difference feeling and sound wise in my book.
I don't know how many strings you have, but I'm using 8. I tune the middle 6 from high to low-
G#,E,C#,B,G#,E. I'll leave out the other two since I think you use 6 strings?
Anyway, for blues, rock, country, it works really nice. And you can tune that C# up to D and you got an E7, really useful I would imagine for some of the music you play in your band. I found you can still learn stuff from C6 tabs(it'll be in another key) but it helps a bit to get to terms with C6.
I thought I would miss the lowest E string that you have with regular open E tuning guitar style, but you find you don't actually need to go that low when your'e playing lap steel that often, you do a lot of fills behind the singer and other licks and can get by real niceley without that low E. Don Helm's playing was a big inspiration for me. follow your heart.

I have been playing E major for many years and am still learning new things. I also have been playing C6 for not as many years and find it a challenge to navigate where I want to go some of the time. I play in a couple of bands regularly and use 2 necks, usually E and C6. Sometimes I go back and forth between the necks during the same song. I love trying different tunings and sometimes use other ones in performance, but most often stick with those two. Having 2 tunings available works well for me.

I have been playing E major for many years and am still learning new things. I also have been playing C6 for not as many years and find it a challenge to navigate where I want to go some of the time. I play in a couple of bands regularly and use 2 necks, usually E and C6. Sometimes I go back and forth between the necks during the same song. I love trying different tunings and sometimes use other ones in performance, but most often stick with those two. Having 2 tunings available works well for me.

I mostly play Rock and Blues with the bands I play in so I find open E works the best having that 151 on the bottom is a must for me,however I often raise the B string 2 up to C# basically giving a 6th or dropping the E string 4 down to a D giving the 7 th .
I then put a couple of those banjo tuners with the set stops on those strings so a quick flip and you get 3 tunings ,easy and works a treat.
Cheers

Kelvin, if you are guitar player first and use the steel guitar as a special effect for your band, you will probably find one of the many E tunings most comfortable on the bandstand. Fret-wise, you will know where you are as it matches up with your guitar fretboard. For my purposes I use, low to high: B, D, E, G#, B, E. However, I find myself tuning the D down to C# for many of our band songs if they have a country flavor. Then it is back up to D for the Blues-Rock stuff. It is pretty versatile and guitar player friendly. For overall sweetness and traditional or jazzy sound, C6 wins. But, that is not what my band's repertoire calls for.

I am missing something here. If you are playing music, what is the big issue with the key of the tuning of the instrument? All this does is denote the location of specific pitches? Unless you are looking to just learn a few licks to drone along in a specific key you are not learning to play anything. My personal goal is to play any song in any key, am I alone in this pursuit?

You're not alone in this pursuit. Different tunings do make certain approaches to songs easier. For example, many of the signature licks associated with the Dobro® in bluegrass music lay out quite nicely in open G tuning. Those same licks would be harder to play in C6th tuning - not impossible, but the hammer on/pull off style of playing isn't available in the same way.

In much the same way, there are scale and chord patterns in C6th tuning that aren't as easy to achieve in other tunings.

Niels Andrews wrote:I am missing something here. If you are playing music, what is the big issue with the key of the tuning of the instrument? All this does is denote the location of specific pitches? Unless you are looking to just learn a few licks to drone along in a specific key you are not learning to play anything. My personal goal is to play any song in any key, am I alone in this pursuit?

Niels, for one thing, the choice of tuning impacts the gauge of strings you use, thereby changing the tone of the tuning. C6 is pitched lower than E6, so in E6 you get that high whine of the G# 1st string (personally, I'm not much of a fan of the high G string in C6). Some players like A6 because it is deeper.

The tunings I use really have no bearing on which key I play in, unless of course it's a specific tune like Four Wheel Drive.

By the way, if you put the time in with C6 (which I know is not easy, since I am also a guitarist who struggled with it), you can play anything in that tuning, although I'm going to say that is really only so with 8 strings.

I found that out Mike when I bought a Super Slide with Maurice's tuning and your book. The C6 is a powerful tuning, and with Reece's tuning on my 12 string lap steel, even more so.
How I view it is: players looking at tunings as a solution should be guided to music theory first, then scales, chords, arpeggio's, and progressions and if they learn the NNS look where they can go, musically. Irregardless of tuning. Heck look at what Robert Randolph does with an unknown tuning? And Mike, good book.

Niels, you are absolutely right. The understanding of theory and its practical application is basic to getting your mind wrapped around any instrument. I guess my interpretation of the thread was the dilemma of a guitar player adding steel guitar to their arsenal of instruments. And if that is the case, perhaps a E tuning variant would be the easiest to grasp and apply to the steel guitar. A lot of blues rock repertoire is based on E tunings; that is how they were written. The same goes for G tunings and the easy access to rapid fire pull offs and hammer ons. I think the music genre has a lot to say as to what tunings are most apropos. I have to agree with you, that to my ears C6 beats them all. But for what I am asked to play, life is easier in E tunings.

"If you don't know how to play, it doesn't matter what tuning you use. And if you do know how to play, it doesn't matter what tuning you use."-Jerry Byrd

Although it bugs the begeezus out of me that there is no standard tuning for the instrument, I have to go with the idea that a body ought to just use whatever works best for him or her in the situation s/he is in. BTW, there are at least a dozen 8 string versions of C6. So even those of us who claim C6 as their own aren't necessarily using the same tuning.

Thanks for all the help! I sat down a few nights this week and just went through all the songs we play on my own with the guitar in c6. Then I played with the guys this weekend and suddenly it just started making sense. I'm still having some difficulty finding the scales but the chordal possibilities in this tuning is amazing! Who knew that a bit of practice would help. I think I'll be sticking with c6. Thanks again.

Clayton, go to looknohands.com and custom tune the guitar to C6. It opens up all the modes and scales for you. Think about C6 this way--aside from the E next to the D 6 of the strings are an open C (CEGCEG) same as a dobro but a 4th higher. There are so many possibilities to C6 that you don't see at first. Of course, you can say the same about E13, B11, etc. I still need multiple tunings, but the C6 is a great stand by go to tuning that is very universal once you understand it. You can do a surprising amount of E9 pedal steel licks on it, play old time dobro tunes, it's easy to play minors, yet I call it my big band on a stick because the tuning really drives a band in a profound way. It forces musicians into swing mode, makes bass players walk and drummers swing, and the crowd to get up and dance. I don't understand what it is about that tuning, but it has an uncanny effect on people.

Webb Kline wrote:Clayton, go to looknohands.com and custom tune the guitar to C6. It opens up all the modes and scales for you. Think about C6 this way--aside from the E next to the D 6 of the strings are an open C (CEGCEG) same as a dobro but a 4th higher. There are so many possibilities to C6 that you don't see at first. Of course, you can say the same about E13, B11, etc. I still need multiple tunings, but the C6 is a great stand by go to tuning that is very universal once you understand it. You can do a surprising amount of E9 pedal steel licks on it, play old time dobro tunes, it's easy to play minors, yet I call it my big band on a stick because the tuning really drives a band in a profound way. It forces musicians into swing mode, makes bass players walk and drummers swing, and the crowd to get up and dance. I don't understand what it is about that tuning, but it has an uncanny effect on people.

That's just o few of the reasons it is so widely used. In the long run, if one really wants to play lap steel in a versatile way rather than in a narrowly focused way, a version of this tuning ought to be in the arsenal.

Webb Kline wrote:Think about C6 this way--aside from the E next to the D 6 of the strings are an open C (CEGCEG)...

I'm not getting what you mean here...

I have no D in my C6 tuning (ACEGACEG or CEGACE), let alone one next to an E.

Andy Henriksen wrote:

Webb Kline wrote:Think about C6 this way--aside from the E next to the D 6 of the strings are an open C (CEGCEG)...

I'm not getting what you mean here...

I have no D in my C6 tuning (ACEGACEG or CEGACE), let alone one next to an E.

My bad, Andy. Sorry. I was transposing in my head from G to C. The A on a C6 would be like an E on G6. And if you don't play the E, you have an Open C tuning that plays the same as dobro open G. Once you understand that relationship, it gives you a different perspective on the tuning and begins to open your mind up to other possibilities besides the 6th sound. Pentatonics are actually very easy to play in a number of positions, along the neck on a C6, so once you're familiar with those positions, you can play the blues, rock, jazz, country, and even bluegrass with about the same effort.

Webb Kline wrote:

Andy Henriksen wrote:

Webb Kline wrote:Think about C6 this way--aside from the E next to the D 6 of the strings are an open C (CEGCEG)...

I'm not getting what you mean here...

I have no D in my C6 tuning (ACEGACEG or CEGACE), let alone one next to an E.

My bad, Andy. Sorry. I was transposing in my head from G to C. The A on a C6 would be like an E on G6. And if you don't play the E, you have an Open C tuning that plays the same as dobro open G. Once you understand that relationship, it gives you a different perspective on the tuning and begins to open your mind up to other possibilities besides the 6th sound. Pentatonics are actually very easy to play in a number of positions, along the neck on a C6, so once you're familiar with those positions, you can play the blues, rock, jazz, country, and even bluegrass with about the same effort.

Gotcha! Yeah, one of the first things that made C6 work for me was avoiding the A string - figuring out grips that work around it.

The second thing that made C6 REALLY work for me was figuring out how to incorporate that A string - chords (or fragments) with the 3rd and 5th (no root) on strings 2 and 3 are a staple, etc.

Really, once you figure out that you don't need to have a root in your chords, it all starts to make sense.

I'm pretty chordy, though...and need to work on getting more scaly.