The Steel Guitar Forum

With not a lot of A6 learning materials about, these are gold! Particularly the third one on slants

1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rARCcW3I0K4

2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAbpeZ-y1eQ

3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdxxtWmUO88

I couldn't agree more. These are great videos, and not just the steel installments. The whole series is fun to watch. I found the rhythm guitar video with Whit Smith (WSR #5) to also be really helpful (and after showing the guitar player in my band I think he's found it useful too!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yyK3wVNku4

Love his approach. Its gold-dust. Thanks Guy.

I still can't quite wrap my head around what he's doing in that third video. For the basic move, it seems to me he's play a C#m, but calling it a E. I guess it's an E6, then? And he's slanting up into a....what? He doesn't seem to know himself. An Emaj9 with no root and no 3rd?

But then he does the same move on a different set of strings, but certainly that must create some different chords, no?

This is the kind of stuff that drives me a bit nuts. Maybe understanding it is less important than recognizing that it sounds good, and figuring out when to use it.

Yes Eddie seems to be more of an "ear" player then a technical guy. Nothing wrong with that, I kind of lean that way myself. But in his recordings, I heard him do some technically proficient harmonies with other instruments, and you can't do that properly by ear . .

Hi Andy, here's from a post I made on the 3rd video, about how I understand the chords to work out:

I'm pretty sure Eddie's tuning is an A6 (low to high):
In the examples he's at the 7th fret for an E chord.
So, when he does the first version of the 7th, (on strings 3, 4, 6) it is an E7 with a 9 added:
The slant pivots about the 6th string, brings the 4th string up 1/2 step and the 3rd string up a whole step.

The second version of the 7th he plays at the 4 chord.
In Eddie's key of E example that is at A in the 12th fret.
In this case the 7th also has a 6 (or 13th) added:
(With this slant, relative to the A the notes are lowered so I wrote them above...)
You’re right that the root is missing (also the 5 is missing). I think this works out with the logic that the rest of the band will be playing the root and 5 (like the bass player), so when you’re making the more interesting chords you can just focus on the “extra” notes. I think it's important to get the 3 in there though, to help keep it major sounding.

I find the 2nd version to be really useful for turn arounds when there is a quick 5 -> 1 chord change. You are already at the easy position to play the root chord. You can hit the slant for the 5, and then slide (pivot?) and hit the same strings and get the root chord.(In this case you'd have to be playing in A, not E. So you start at the 5 (E) with the slant and get to the 1 (A)).

I’m open to any suggestions about how I’ve interpreted the chord theory

Ah, you seem to be right. I thought the 3rd and 4th string were both sliding up 2 frets (C# > D# on string 4), which is why I thought Emaj9.

But I watched again and yeah, I think it's just E9, with that crooked slant.

Anyway, definitely lots to explore in those couple moves. And dissecting stuff like this is fun, and I think makes one a better musician.

"I thought the 3rd and 4th string were both sliding up 2 frets"

He does show a chord like that (where he plays the same fret on the 2nd and 3rd strings), right around 3:05.

But for the life of me I CANNOT get those slants to work. You have to use the nose of the bar, and I always seem to get it wrong. (Maybe something to try and practice next).

Tim Weaver wrote: The slant pivots about the 6th string, brings the 4th string up 1/2 step and the 3rd string up a whole step.

I use that slant on 'Walkin' the Cat' (on another thread) which I wrote after watching these videos. I use it at the end of the second A section, going from a I chord to a I dominant heading to the IV. There are three chords as the bar is straight, then slanted one fret and then two. The resulting chords are D6, D7b9 and then D9. It is not so easy at the 5th fret. It's probably the least successful slant in the piece and I should have done it again.

There is wealth of material in that third video.

I use that slant in the third video two ways. The dominant chord with a 9th on top up two frets is certainly useful to me, but so is the same slant up one additional fret. If I move it up one more fret, I get a nice V7 chord. In the key of E (the key Mr. Rivers uses in the video) that slant on strings 3, 4, & 6 makes a nice B dominant with 3rd string being played at fret 10.

I had noted some V-I cadences a while back. I'm sure I can improve it after checking out video 3 more closely.