The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi:

In don't necessarily expect you to know the answer to his and I've asked several who were more or less close to Curly C.

Back before knee levers, he had a goodie pedal that lowered the top A to Ab, the C to B, the upper G to F#, and raised the F to F#...a combination of several changes. His tuning from the top was E C A G E C A F D A.

Do you have any idea how he used this since you can get it also (I lower both A's to Ab...for now)? When he added KL's, he had one that lowered the 2nd and 3rd strings 1/2, so he could have used it with his "P5".

What I do see is a E/D polychord open strings. I'm thinking he might have used it as an ending, as Doug J. does with the D/C chord at the end of "Streets of Laredo."
This would give that chord anywhere.

Hope this isn't an unfair question.

There was a time when Curly Lowered #2, #3 & #4 on his RKL which formed an E9 chord on strings 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and then he could bring in the 7th. note by Lowering #1 from (E) to (D) on his last pedal. The second~last pedal Lowered #2 from (C) to (B) also. But, by 1980, he had discontinued the ‘RKL’ change!

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“Big John”
a.k.a. {Keoni Nui}
Current Equipment

Johnny Cox would probably be the one to answer this. Nobody knew Curly's tunings better than Johnny,
Terrt Bethel

The chord, which is a 13th with an augmented 11th, was a popular ending chord years ago using pedals six and seven; but I prefer the pedal and knee combination you refer to due to the fatter sound and the melodic advantages of working the 3rd and 4th strings in and out of the 9th and 13th chord.

Am I wrong...didn't Hal Walls (from PA) & perhaps his son Scott (now in Texas) know Chalker's tuning??!

I have to spell chords to figure them out, Buddy. C 13th w/an aug 11th!!! would that be...
C, E, G, Bb, D, F#, & A....? if I am right that's sort of like a C dominant 7th with a D triad on top?? Thumbs up or thumbs down?!

Right. C on top may work too. In most uses you would omit the G, but on steel it is so easy to just strum across all those strings, and the G doesn't cause much damage.

My brother, Bob Seymour, (Bobbe's Dad) told me once that if you were going to leave out a note in a "Big" chord (more than 3 notes) you could safely leave out the 5th (the G in this example) and your ear sort of "hears" it!