C6 copedent help for a neophyte

[Dustin Rigsby]

I have a D-10 MSA which has what I believe is a copedent that is not what most charts are on a couple of strings. I don't know anything about c6,but I want to learn. Specifically, 1st string is tuned to G with no raise at all. 4th raises to Bb and 3rd lowers to B. Can anyone offer any advice on this ? Should I try to change the copedent or just learn to use what I have first and go from there,sort of like I did with E9 ?

[Paul Wade]

i would tune my first string to a D. look at jimmy day's and buddy emmons chart. that should give you and
idea ....
http://b0b.com/tunings/stars.html#C6jd

p.w

[Ian Rae]

... and 4th raising to Bb and 3rd lowering to B are quite usual.

[Todd Monroe]

I'm new to c6 myself, and didn't know how mine was strung, but after drawing up a copedent chart for the forum to see, I had all the answers I needed in five minutes. Just a thought.

[Richard Sinkler]

... and 4th raising to Bb and 3rd lowering to B are quite usual.

Very true. In fact the 3rd string lower to B is probably seen in most "standard" C6 copedents. Also the 4th (and sometime the 8th) raised to Bb is so very common, that I kind of think of it as standard.

[Lane Gray]

Those knees are fairly standard

[Dustin Rigsby]

So should I not be concerned about the first string raise ? Both Buddy and Jimmy had first string raises...like I said, I really don't know much about C6. E9 was a lot easier because the tuning was based out of E, it made more logical sense to me because I am a guitar player. Everything about C6 seems foreign to me,but, I dig the sound....

[Lane Gray]

When I tuned to G and had a raise on P5, I think I used it twice.
Now that I tune it to D, I have a rarely used raise to Eb on P8. But a first string raise of a half step can be done with a fingerpull

[Gary Thorsen]

The knee lever raising the A or 4th string to Bb gives you a dominant 7th tone and a nice broad 9th chord with the D on top. A string group I use frequently is 1,4,6 - the first string D is the ninth and 6th string E is the 3rd of the chord.

Move that same string grouping up two frets for the IIm - 5 dominant change found in much of the music you'll want to play on the C6th. The II minor is played with the 6th pedal depressed to lower the E (6) and raised knee lever A string (4) - release the raised 4th string and you have the 5 dominant chord - VERY useful!

It saves a lot of bar moves pedal mashing with the 7th pedal (6/9 chord) and facilitates some very nice melodic lines (and some cool not so melodic lines) throughout the II/5/I change found in swing, blues and jazz, which is what you want to get after on the C6th. Play with it a bit and you'll soon fall in love with that pedal/KL combination.

[Gary Thorsen]

The 1,4,6 with no pedals or knees gives you a nice fat sounding 6/9 chord with the D on top - lovely!

[Dave Dube]

You might want to try a couple of lessons before you change anything. The link below contains several lessons from Carl Dixon back in 2010. Might help to understand a bit.

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... 8e4a1edaab

[Tony Prior]

So should I not be concerned about the first string raise ? Both Buddy and Jimmy had first string raises...like I said, I really don't know much about C6. E9 was a lot easier because the tuning was based out of E, it made more logical sense to me because I am a guitar player. Everything about C6 seems foreign to me,but, I dig the sound....

ANYONE CAN DO THIS. A 5 min overview

given we are all on the exact same standard C6th tuning


look at C6th from the 4th fret..which is E...as your reference if the C zero fret is confusing.

I believe the issue is many get roped into the E9th AB Peds and believe life begins/ends with them and that E is at the zero fret.

Well not so fast...

in it's most simplistic form...

C6th strings, 3,4,5,6, 7

Open fret root , 5th fret 4 chord, 7th fret 5 chord
open fret ped 6 , 4 chord
2nd fret ped 6 , 5 chord

open fret root
3rd fret 4 chord /5 ped
5th fret 5 chord / 5 ped


Lets go to E where we are all happy

4th fret E/ 9th fret 4 chord A, 11th the fret 5 chord B
4th fret 6 ped/ 4 chord..A
6th fret/6 ped/5 chord...B


oh and this, up above we mentioned that F was on the 3rd fret with the 5 Ped ,more like an altered F7 ,forget the name remember the position.

So If F7 or whatever we wanna name it is on the 3rd fret with the 5 ped then E7 is at the 2nd fret with the 5 ped.

E 4th fret open
E7 2nd fret /5 ped
A 4th fret/ 6 ped
B 6th fret/ 6 ped

Positions first, formal names 2nd . The instrument allows us to do this.

The strait across tuning allows for different triads of the root chords which is where a variety of the phrasing we hear, comes from.

Now mix and match the positions.

Bring yourself to learning to play out of 1 root position, then a 2nd, then a 3rd. You don't need to do it all in one day. Forget the great Buddy licks, play simple chords to the tracks.

I personally do not get wrapped up in the formal chord names, I just know what positions offer interesting substitutions that I may be looking for. I prescribe to the Joe Pass concept, if it sounds good, play it , forget the name ! Now that doesn't mean we shouldn't go forward and understand what each ped/lever may offer, we should, but start with the simplicity of it all. Study and learn a few relative substitution positions, then go back and name them if you are so inclined.

In my infinite lack of wisdom I still go back to Jeff Newmans Music to Get C6th By now and then which is where I got my C6th start back in the 70's . It has carried me through the whole journey. Looking back at it 40 years later, it was a brilliant collection of songs which maintain it's reference, today, 40 years later.

[Ian Rae]

This is just a suggestion that worked for me.

When I decided to get serious about the back neck, I was already curious about the E9/B6 setup, so I tuned it to B6, thinking that if I ever got to try a universal 12-string, I would already have the geography. As it turns out, I'm glad I did.

But even if you aren't thinking that far ahead, and bearing in mind what Tony said about the 4th fret as a temporary "home", the B6 tuning presents much less conflict with how you are already thinking on the E9.

And although all the instruction books are written for C6, I soon got used to adjusting by a fret.

Just my two penn'orth.

[Dave Dube]

Here is a link to a page with a description of the copedent with an explanation of the use of each pedal. The site is aimed at Hawaiian music but this page is useful regardless of your musical preference.

http://steelc6th.com/tabs/c6th_pedal_steel/tabs.htm

Hope this helps.

[Herb Steiner]

I have a booklet that explains my pedal setup and the most commonly used chords for each pedal, knee lever, and combination.

I have this essay available for free download on my website. Here's a link: C6 Pedal Essay

[Richard Sinkler]

Wow. That's great Herb.

I wish someone would come up with something that gives a starting point to figuring out what the big boys are doing when they are playing many chords at 100 miles per hour in a song. I just can't wrap my head around that.

[Dustin Rigsby]

Tony,
Thats a cut to the chase approach...I like it !


Herb,
Many thanks for making that essay publicly available ! You're generosity will not be forgotten in the future. BTW, I really like your tell it like it is (and was) posts.

Y'all have given me a lot to chew on to get me going. The whole reason I bought a D-10 was because I thought I was missing out on something,and having a D-10 without knowing how to play C6th is like the difference between going on a chaperoned date and your wedding night when the lights go down....

[Ian Rae]

I wish someone would come up with something that gives a starting point to figuring out what the big boys are doing

I think Buddy Emmons did that in his Basic C6 course, which no-one appears to have mentioned so far.
Pedals 5,6 & 7 form the same basis as A,B & C on the E9 - 5/6 is home. With each of those you get a different 9th chord (used as a substitute 7th) and together you get a diminished (often used as a 7b9). You can play a lot of stuff with just those changes. Bear in mind that because the strings are tuned closer together, most chords are fattened out with added 6ths, 7ths or 9ths which can generally be ignored when you're figuring out chord progressions. The tuning is more intuitive than E9, where every note is accounted for.

[Richard Sinkler]

Here is a good example of what I am talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw4b5AFB-Mw

Maybe Bob can move this topic to it's own thread. This is kind of a hijack.

[Richard Sinkler]

Here's a better sample.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRU8Cjj ... D0&index=7

[Ian Rae]

Richard, I don't think you're guilty of hijacking. The question was about which changes belong in a "standard" C6 copedent, and you've drawn attention to the fact that John Hughey had all the changes we'd expect, plus some of his own. (What follows is aimed not at experienced C6 players, but at curious beginners like me.)

I watched Back Home In Indiana which provoked the usual response of "I'll never play like John Hughey" but then I thought that even if I can't play like he played I can at least play what he played slowly and badly, and maybe learn something. It was the 13th and 14th measures that put me in mind of what Richard said about "playing many chords at 100 miles per hour in a song", but I thought they sounded kind of familiar.

So I set about writing down what I could see and hear, and came up with the following:- [If Dropbox prompts you to create an account, ignore it as you don't need to]

https://www.dropbox.com/s/of4w46cn4h108 ... b.pdf?dl=0 [edited 3/16/15 to include chord symbols]

Smarter folk than me will doubtless post corrections, but I figure it's close, and what is apparent is that most of it is thumb and middle in 6ths. This reinforces my view that a lot of what sounds most effective in music is actually simple when you analyse it.

Here is a backing track at practice speed (92 bpm)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dbunegwdfefwt ... 2.mp3?dl=0

and one at the same speed as the video if you want a reality check!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1c111immmykp2 ... 0.mp3?dl=0

At some point I'll attempt a video to show what I think I've learnt so far.