The Steel Guitar Forum

What are standards today that will likely still be considered standards tomorrow?

Are there any standards today that you believe will not stand the test of time?

10 string E9 and 10 string C6 are both standard today, but some younger non-country players seem to be trending back to 8 string necks...

3 pedals 4 knee levers seems to be the standard today for 10 string E9 tuning.

Adding a 4th pedal as a "Franklin pedal" seems common these days, as does adding a 5th knee lever. Will either of these become standard the way 3x4 is today?

What would you like to see as a standard that isn't?

The great thing about standards is that there are so many different ones to choose from.

Or the 5 mm hex nut... Or is it 5/16ths?

Jay,
Quoting Lloyd Green:
If you take a song and remove the singer, does the melody stand by it's self or does it fall apart? If It does, thats a good song."

That would be a way for you to judge some of the new tunes out to see if they will be remembered 20 years from now.

This topic seems to have taken off in two directions.
The OP seemed to be asking about PSG contruction, NOT music.
Follow up posters seemed to take it off into a direction discussing music itself.

Regarding music........
Think about it: What standards have been produced, in any genre, in the last 20-30 years?
By standards, I mean if you go to a jam session, someone will call out a "standard" that everyone is likely to know so that everyone will be able to play and participate.
And.......songs that will be called out 10-20 years from now, because they are a "standard" and have stood the test of time.

There probably aren't any.

You may not be familiar with him, or may not like his band, or may not like him (even though you don't know him personally), but Gene Simmons (KISS) has some thoughts.

Not only iconic performers and the lack thereof, but also on the music business, politics, etc......

There is a much longer interview with Dan Rather, but he talks about the music business icons (which create the standards) here.

I have a 60 something friend who is not a huge R&R fan, but he said that once he started watching the longer interview (about 45 minutes) he couldn't stop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNlUJ_adsYU

ajm wrote:This topic seems to have taken off in two directions.

The OP seemed to be asking about PSG construction, NOT music. Follow up posters seemed to take it off into a direction discussing music itself.

Regarding music........
Think about it: What standards have been produced, in any genre, in the last 20-30 years?

By standards, I mean if you go to a jam session, someone will call out a "standard" that everyone is likely to know so that everyone will be able to play and participate.
And.......songs that will be called out 10-20 years from now, because they are a "standard" and have stood the test of time.

There probably aren't any.

You may not be familiar with him, or may not like his band, or may not like him (even though you don't know him personally), but Gene Simmons (KISS) has some thoughts.

Not only iconic performers and the lack thereof, but also on the music business, politics, etc......

There is a much longer interview with Dan Rather, but he talks about the music business icons (which create the standards) here.

I have a 60 something friend who is not a huge R&R fan, but he said that once he started watching the longer interview (about 45 minutes) he couldn't stop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNlUJ_adsYU

Right after I started this thread, it occurred to me that people might think I meant standard tunes, but I didn't go back and change the title.

Since there have been some good contributions on the "Standard Tunes" angle, I"ll just roll with it and be glad you all still put up with me!

I fixed the formatting problem and deleted the posts about it. We now return to the topic(s) at hand...

For many years I bit my tongue, reinforcing the status quo regarding copedent standardization. In the past few years, though, I've come to the conclusion that the current standard D-10 borders on obsolescence. I will probably write a manifesto about the problem and its obvious (to me) solution, but for now I'll just say this:

It's absurd to switch to a whole different tuning just to change musical styles. It's even more absurd to have to switch necks just to play low notes. That's what the current "standard" has given us.

As for songs, why must jazz standards be played on one tuning and country standards on another? Guitar players use the same tuning for both. A violinist can play Orange Blossom Special on the same 4 strings he uses for a Bach concerto. I understand how the D-10 evolved, but when the reentrant D and the C# lever were added to the C6th, the redundancy from E9th should have been our wake-up call. It seems that hardly anyone noticed.

There, I've said it.

I have a "common" D-10 setup (not common anymore high G on C6th). At almost 80 (December) I see no reason to change. But, if I were starting out now I would have a Universal.

I started when a double neck was the thing and probably a carry over from the non pedal days where multiple necks were commonplace. With non-pedal, different tunings were used for different songs. Some primarily used one tuning but still used others. I even see some will change the note on one string for a certain song (which we don't have to do with pedals).

b0b wrote:I fixed the formatting problem and deleted the posts about it. We now return to the topic(s) at hand...

For many years I bit my tongue, reinforcing the status quo regarding copedent standardization. In the past few years, though, I've come to the conclusion that the current standard D-10 borders on obsolescence. I will probably write a manifesto about the problem and its obvious (to me) solution, but for now I'll just say this:

It's absurd to switch to a whole different tuning just to change musical styles. It's even more absurd to have to switch necks just to play low notes. That's what the current "standard" has given us.

As for songs, why must jazz standards be played on one tuning and country standards on another? Guitar players use the same tuning for both. A violinist can play Orange Blossom Special on the same 4 strings he uses for a Bach concerto. I understand how the D-10 evolved, but when the reentrant D and the C# lever were added to the C6th, the redundancy from E9th should have been our wake-up call. It seems that hardly anyone noticed.

There, I've said it.

Whew b0b set fire to this one. I will get my popcorn out and watch the action.

my pitchfork as Devil's advocate is Why can't it be played with one neck.

Or even without pedals.

I have never even strummed a C6 neck.
I really don't know the first thing about jazz.

Bob said: "As for songs, why must jazz standards be played on one tuning and country standards on another? Guitar players use the same tuning for both. A violinist can play Orange Blossom Special on the same 4 strings he uses for a Bach concerto."

I find it hard to argue with that. Although, if I were to do so, I guess you could make the argument that 6 stringers sometimes use open tunings for slide. It can also be argued that slide can be sort of its own little instrument as well, so point/counterpoint.

I would think that having another neck would be similar to having to learn another instrument to be able to use it.

Playing PSG is hard enough as it is, especially for a beginner.

If, way back when, the C6 (or E9) tuning had not been developed, and players had to make due with what they had in the form of a standard tuning/copedent, I wonder if we might not have more players now?

All that said, I do personally believe that it is important to have a standard tuning/copedent. It would be nice, however, if we only had to deal with one, be it E9 or C6 or Universal or whatever.

On the other hand, different gauge strings and different intervals will give you different tones and feelings. And different changes will let you do stuff that no other player can figure out, adding to your personal mystique.

At this point, I'm lost. What was the point I was trying to make? ;>))

I am interested in seeing where this goes as for me;

I am following the "Lenny Breau" School of thought that any chord can be summarised with very little difficulty. Granted this may sacrifice the root or the 5th depending on the key intervals required but I think to the ear in context its pretty hard to differentiate the difference in the song especially with a band present.

A 12 string Uni seems logical to me on both pedal/non-pedal as intervals and chords haven't changed.

For example if something is played in Low C why not just transpose it to whatever key you want?

oops let me jump back on the fence. Sorry I got tempted to join in.