The Steel Guitar Forum

Does anybody lower the 10th string to A? Is it on a special lever or a "standard" one?

Yes - Fred Justice introduced me to this. I have it on the RKR lever so that when I lower the 2nd string (half-stop D then down to C#) the 9th string lowers from D to C# and then the 10th string B drops down to A. Nice low note resolution if you treat the open (no pedals) chord as the dominant 7th (E7) and then drop to the I chord (A-C#-E on 10-9-8 strings). Works well for me on that knee lever.

Many, many players do this. It's part of the Paul Franklin pedal, used by itself or along with string 5 lower to A. Very common change.

My first guitar was a Fender 800, 10 pedals, no knees. It had the 10th string lower to A on the 'B' pedal along with the standard string 3 and 6 raises, and string 9 lowered to C# on the 'A' pedal along with the raise on 5. Unconventional, but it was cool. Gave some interesting counter-movement and a nice A6 chord across the lower 8 strings. Pedals down it was basically the same as pedals down on a standard uni tuning where there's no D string.

It works well on the C pedal.

I leave it tuned to A no changes at all, makes pedal 1 really easy!!!

b0b wrote:It works well on the C pedal.

It does, - I had it on a Fessy I bought, it came that way. However it made the action on the C pedal ungodly hard..
Could barely push it, and I use the c pedal a lot.. Had to take it off.. Might work on a guitar with softer pedal action... bob

Lowering String-12 B-to-A on the A-pedal is an excellent change for Universal.

On my D-10's I had in on "RKLF":

http://www.gregcutshaw.com/Tab/Split%20 ... 20Tab.html

Check out the tabs and sound files at the above link for "LKRF" that isolate that change.

Thanks for the knowledge. I've been playing for 38 years and never noticed the low A until recently when I studies "A Slow One for Peggy".