The Steel Guitar Forum

Having settled on a D9 Tuning for my 7 string DADF#ACE, I’ve been playing around with some related tunings on my 6 strings. Mostly DDF#ACE and DADACE

Today I tried “losing” the high E string, for a D7 tuning, DADF#AC which so far seems pretty cool. The only reference I found so far for this tuning is on a YouTube video by Brian Hayes, https://youtu.be/pm5wR_-BOQg

Has anyone else tried this tuning variation with the 7th on the first string? Is there a reason that it’s not a popular or common tuning?

It seems pretty versatile to me. You have two 1-3 minor chords F#m & Am. An F# diminished chord, plus all of the usual Open D chords, along with the dominant 7 chords.

I had an old Regal acoustic lap guitar with a .022 gauge string in position 7. So that in D tuning DADF#AD the string nearest you could be tuned to C for the minor 7 or C# for the major 7 and a minor F# A C#. It worked well because being the nearest string it was easy to grab.

Robert Murphy wrote:I had an old Regal acoustic lap guitar with a .022 gauge string in position 7. So that in D tuning DADF#AD the string nearest you could be tuned to C for the minor 7 or C# for the major 7 and a minor F# A C#. It worked well because being the nearest string it was easy to grab.

I play mostly blues and blues-rock, so the dominant 7 is usually more useful than the major 7, but I am definitely going to keep that C# idea in mind for playing songs that are not bluesy. Great to have the option of a full minor triad combined with the option of the major 7 chords.

Thanks Robert!

Lately I have been looking into E7 tuning with the 7 on top. I am working with a friend who wants to play 6 string lap steel for the blues. He has physical limitations that do not allow for slants or pinches, so he uses straight bar and strum. Several forum members recommended the E7 as a classic blues tuning, but I do not see much written about it. We are currently tuned to E7 (E,B,E,G#,B,D from low to high.) For the blues, this tuning offers a lot. It is a forgiving, almost bomb-proof, tuning. "Close" counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and E7.

(I am putting up a G minor blues scale in this tuning from studybass.com which offers tons of customizable tunings, scales and chords.)

The I is on fret 3, IV on fret 8 and V on 10. You can shift shift to the 7th chord just by enlarging the strum..for instance on bar 4 of a 12 bar blues.

The top 3 strings are a lot of fun:

For instance, you can play a classic blues turnaround on frets 3 to 2 to 1 and back to the major chord on fret 3.

You can play a dim7 on the top 3 strings of any fret and run it right up the neck every 3rd fret.

The top 3 strings of fret 11 are all in the minor blues scale, R,b3,b5, and you can slide back and forth from fret 10 to 11 on the V chord of the 12 bar blues.

There is also a cheater V chord on the top 3 strings of fret 1. There are notes 2,4,and 5#, a little sloppy, but we are talking the blues.

Plus, everything (except the top string) up 3 frets from the root is in the G minor blues scale.

I think this tuning will be a good tuning for my friend.

Just a note to add that Andy Volk has been doing some cool stuff with the Major 7th on string 1. DADF#AC#

https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=324963