blues on E9th?

Ron Shepard · Post by **Ron Shepard** » 24 Jul 2002 1:42 pm

Does anyone tune their E9th neck differently
when playing blues? I would like to experiment with this. I use the standard E9
tuning right now.

chas smith · Post by **chas smith** » 24 Jul 2002 1:54 pm

The only thing different is my 9th string is C# and I get the D for both 2 and 9 on RKR. The majority of the E9th "signature licks" seem to be on strings 1 thru 6; for me, most of the blues stuff is from 4 on down, easy on the A pedal. Of course, the notes are there, all over the neck, but the patterns seem to lay in easier between strings 9 and 4.

Andy Greatrix · Post by **Andy Greatrix** » 24 Jul 2002 9:13 pm

There is no reason why you can't play blues on an E9th tuning. The notes are all there. Just don't use the peddls as much. For instance, on the fifth fret is A with no peddles. Slide back two frets and raise your B's to C# and you have an A blues scale. The guitar is not limited, just the players.(like me!)Happy picking!

Bob Hoffnar · Post by **Bob Hoffnar** » 24 Jul 2002 11:10 pm

You live near Doug Beuamier. He can get you on the right track with blues/pentatonic scales on the standard E9 neck with no problem.
http://www.dougbsteel.com/

Here is a great sample of Doug's work. It might look a little complex at first but is very very easy when explained in person.
www.dougbsteel.com/PentPage.htm

Bob[This message was edited by Bob Hoffnar on 25 July 2002 at 12:14 AM.]

Robert Todd · Post by **Robert Todd** » 25 Jul 2002 6:34 am

Another way to think of Blues is to play 3 frets above the standard position, or for E at the at the 3rd fret, the 8th fret with the D lever and the 10th fret with the AB or BC pedals.

There are a ton of standard blues licks moving between the 8th and 10th frests on the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th strings.

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 25 Jul 2002 9:46 am

The only thing that the E9th lacks for blues is range. My Sacred Steel / E9th hybrid works real well for blues, because you can pick up the rhythm part easily and trade off with a lead guitarist.

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (Emaj9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic) Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)

Pete Burak · Post by **Pete Burak** » 25 Jul 2002 10:13 am

I've found some cool blues licks for the Statesborto Blues style (Allman Bros.) by tuning my F#'s up a half step to G and play with A+B down.
It seems like anything that gets you an open 7th chord is good for blues licks.

Joerg Hennig · Post by **Joerg Hennig** » 25 Jul 2002 12:13 pm

...tuning my F#´s up a half step to G...

I have a knee lever that does just that. Very useful also for playing blues.

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 26 Jul 2002 6:45 pm

Bob, thanks for the plug.. I appreciate it.

Hi Ron, There's plenty of blues stuff available on standard E9. For blues I like to use slides and a minimum of "twang" pedals. A little bit of distortion helps too.

I just today finished recording 4 short tunes to put on my web site, and one of them is a nasty sliding blues! It's done on standard E9, 3 & 4. One of my changes is G# to G (string 6). I haven't put the 4 songs on my site yet, but below is a link to the mp3 for the blues thing. If you have cable it should download fast, but 56K folks (like me) may have to wait a while for it to load. Check it out here:

<CENTER> http://www.dougbsteel.com/MudSlide.mp3 </CENTER>

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My Site/Instruction | Doug's Free Tab | Steels and Accessories

[This message was edited by Doug Beaumier on 24 August 2002 at 07:04 PM.]

Ron Shepard · Post by **Ron Shepard** » 28 Jul 2002 1:04 pm

Thanks everyone for your help, I will sitting down tonight to work on some blues stuff.

Mike Perlowin · Post by **Mike Perlowin** » 29 Jul 2002 8:13 am

I actually play in a blues rock band called "The Fickle Pigs." There's a revcent thread about us in the Steel Guitar Players section of the forum.

I use a basic E9/B6 universal, but I almost never venture into th B6 (Mainly because I don't know very much about it.)

My guitar, like all universals, is missing the D string, and has an extra octave of Bass. It also has some unique things, mainly the wrist lever, and the fact that I drop my low B string to low A when the pedals are down.

I explain a little of what I do in my last post in the thread about me and the band.

Mike Delaney · Post by **Mike Delaney** » 31 Jul 2002 3:16 pm

Another thing to consider is the Dorian blues scale. Dorian is the major scale played from 2nd step to 2nd step. In C, for example, we would have D Dorian. The notes would be D,E,F,G,A,B,C,D. The straight Dorian scale will work fine, Carlos Santana uses this extensively. By adding an Ab, we have a Dorian blues scale. D,E,F,G,Ab,A,B,C,D. Now you can play blues in D anywhere on the neck that you can find a C scale.

Dave Birkett · Post by **Dave Birkett** » 31 Jul 2002 4:04 pm

Listen to Jimmy Day's solo on Bud's Bounce. He played a D9 w/o lowering strings 4 and 8. Play along with him and you'll get some great ideas.