The Steel Guitar Forum

In a post of mine on string-9 dissonance in the "Steel Players" section (resonating with 8 and 10) Bobby Lee said:

<SMALL>You don't happen to tune your 9th string to C#, do you? (Some people do.)</SMALL>

Thanks Bobby! I thought I would be shooting the sacred E9 cow doing this,but now I have tuned 9 down to C# and pull 2 and 9 to 7b with my D-lever. It cured my problem and gave me a useful no-pedal vi-minor as well.

How many others do this, and what do you call my tuning now?
<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Dave Marshall on 14 April 2006 at 09:48 PM.]</p></FONT>

E6 add 9 is the chord
Since you no longer have a b7 it is no longer a Dominant 9 chord

With the 2nd string as a Ma7 you could call the open chord EMa13 (E G# B D# F# C#)

I've heard of folks also tuning 2 to C# and pulling both 2 and 9 up to D with a single lever. You'd also need one to pull 2 up to D# or else use a half-stop

Realize that you can count the number of folks who tune that way on one hand, but it has been done.


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<small>Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S/D-12 6x6, 1984 Sho-Bud S/D-12 7x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

I don't see how a very basic technique problem of having a string ring that you didn't intend to play can be solved by changing tuning.

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Bob
upcoming gigs
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I gotta go along with Bob on that one!

If you are a sloppy picker like myself, the 9th string D is easily sounded by accident. If you have A and B down and you're trying to grab a big low chord it's helpful to not have a D right in the middle of things. I don't know about resonant overtones. For me it was always more of a direct full contact blunder.

The answer is PRACTICE so you don't strike that string until you mean to. End of report.

Just to clarify, I didn't recommend tuning the 9th string to C#. I just thought that if it was tuned to C#, it might have caused the resonance problem you described.

When two adjacent strings are tuned to the same note, the unpicked string will often start vibrating on its own (a "sympathetic vibration"). This is actually a reason not to tune the 9th string to C#.

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<font size="1"><img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b2005.gif" width="78 height="78">Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Williams D-12 E9, C6add9, Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop S-8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, C6 or A6)   My Blog </font>

You could tune all the strings to the exact same note and cut out a lot of problems.

I think Bovine has already done that

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<small>Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S/D-12 6x6, 1984 Sho-Bud S/D-12 7x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

About 2 weeks after getting my '70 MSA D10 I added a KL to lower string 8 to D, and then used the extra string to add a lower E.... this has almost become common place, and lead to my eventual use of the U12 tuning... just info for folks to consider.

Above comments pertaining to playing the string you expect to play also are very good advice

On Joe Wright's web site he has exercises on perfecting your grips, and this is a great idea.



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Dave Wren
'96 Carter S12-E9/B6,7X7; Twin Session 500s; Hilton Pedal; Black Box
www.ameechapman.com

With this "new to me" U12 tuning playing the WRONG string has become the source of some late night work sessions for me!! At least I never have to "wonder" if it was the wrong string!! lol..

Larry

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"Fessy" S/D 12, 8/6 Hilton Pedal, Sessions 400 Ltd. Home Grown E/F Rack
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