The Steel Guitar Forum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1j1v-T36LQ

E13th tuning? Surprising to hear a spacey tremolo FX kick in briefly at 1:50. The only FX use I've heard from Byrd before was an eBow. Nice tune.

Interesting!
And he only used it for a very short period of time.

Jerry played that song on his C diatonic tuning. I like his 1950's recording of the song. It's faster than this live one, more energy, and has a nice bakelite tone.

Thanks for that, Andy!

And thanks Erv & Doug.

What a great place we here at the Forum.

As intricate as that song sounds, it's actually easy to play on Jerry's diatonic tuning. The chords and the notes lay out perfectly... they are right under your bar!

Doug,
That's what good playing is all about, to take a difficult song and make it look easy.
Some songs are just made for certain tunings. For instant, "Sand", that song was made for the B11th tuning, or maybe the other way around.

Are you sure he didn't do that effect with with his volume pedal? It's so perfectly timed to the tempo of the song!

b0b, that doesn't sound like a volume pedal effect to me but perhaps I'm wrong!
and Doug, I was originally gonna peg that as C diatonic but the arpeggio at the end fooled my ear. On closer listening you are of course, right.

Doug Beaumier wrote:Jerry played that song on his C diatonic tuning. I like his 1950's recording of the song. It's faster than this live one, more energy, and has a nice bakelite tone.

What album is the original from and is it available to listen to online?

I've got to say, that is an absolutely beautiful piece of playing. Is it a non-pedal steel he is using?

Early on when I started learning the lap steel I realised you can't "fake" playing well on that instrument. You don't sound good until you are actually that good to sound good, if that makes any sense. I think it is because it is an instrument that is extremely sensitive to way the musician plays it, with a subtle richness of sounds available.

What album is the original from and is it available to listen to online?

It's on the Hi-Fi Guitar album, 1958. I don't think it's online for listening.

Doug Beaumier wrote:Jerry played that song on his C diatonic tuning.

Do any of y'all play that C diatonic tuning?

Diatonic tunings are a kettle of worms! It helps a bit when you realize that the C6th tuning is imbedded in there on strings 1,2,4,5 and 7 (I don't have a 7 or 8 stringer right now so I end with the string #6 F note). You can get some very rich, close voicings and harp-like effects but there are some complex tuning issues that are over my math-challenged head.

I worked out "My Funny Valentine" in C Diatonic about 15 years ago and then never touched the tuning again till this weekend. I just arranged this version of One Note Samba in C Diatonic ... it was tricky ... you gotta keep that F (and then Bb) note on top for all the voicings in that tune.

PDF:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lhmwu6p4ral7q ... a.pdf?dl=0

One Note Samba MIDI audio: http://picosong.com/p84i/

I'm working on trying to transcribe "Come a Little Closer" .... more on that later.

Here's JB's version from Hi-Fi Guitar: http://picosong.com/p84w/

Here's Jerry Byrd's arrangement of Cold Cold Heart in C Diatonic. About ten years ago, JB's brother Jack shared this with the forum. Thankfully, the links are still good:

http://picturehost.net/av/003.jpg
http://picturehost.net/av/004.jpg
http://picturehost.net/av/005.jpg

David Stewart has some good C diatonic information on his web site, including a bit of tab for "Come a Little Closer" --> http://www.steelc6th.com/tunings/diatonic.htm

Jerry's C diatonic tuning has no D in it, so it's not a full C major scale. He said the tuning requires 7 strings, but he opted for two E strings (high and low). He said he tried a D but it just seemed to get in the way.

The tuning features some nice chromatic style patterns and half steps over minor chords that are not usually heard on non-pedal steel. More pedal steel-like in sound.

I played diatonic tuning on my recording of "A Very Good Year"... several years ago. It wasn't Jerry's tuning though. It was John Ely's A diatonic tuning, I believe, transposed down because I had thicker strings on my guitar at the time. Can't remember which diatonic tuning, but it's definitely based on the major scale ---> https://soundcloud.com/doug-beaumier/a- ... eel-guitar

Thank you for the C diatonic info.