The Steel Guitar Forum

Just for fun I tuned to DGDGBD today. Kinda fun. No straight bar minor triads, but you do have double G5 on the bottom, and the BD Bm 1-3 on top. Not the most versatile tuning, but it’s fun for blues, and the low D is something you can’t get with high bass (Dobro) G.

Anyone here use this as their main tuning? Occasional tuning?

Well, although I use 6th and other tunings most often, I do keep an acoustic steel set up for A low bass, which is the oldest steel tuning, and is the same intervals as the G low bass.

With that set of strings I tune:

A low bass - E A E A C# E

E - E B E G# B E

C#m (E 6)- E B E G# C# E

E7 variant - E B D G# B E

F#9 - F# A# E G# C# E

Somehow I rarely play A high bass, which corresponds to the intervals of the standard Dobro G tuning.

I play with what I call low G tuning, but I put an E on the sixth string. If I think of it as a five string tuning it's low G and everything works as normal. If I think of it as a six string tuning it's Em7. Super versatile, familiar, and many common chord sequences fall right under your hands.

Brian Evans wrote:I play with what I call low G tuning, but I put an E on the sixth string. If I think of it as a five string tuning it's low G and everything works as normal. If I think of it as a six string tuning it's Em7. Super versatile, familiar, and many common chord sequences fall right under your hands.

I’ve thought about doing this too, but at the moment I’m liking the tuning “as-is”. While not the most versatile tuning overall, it may be the most versatile Open Major tuning. By having the 5151 on the bottom 4 strings, it allows for some rich minor/major (suspensions) strums. Open D has the advantage of having the 1 on top and on bottom, but the implied minor (151) isn’t as rich.

Before playing around with the G low bass, I was tuning D6/Bm7, DADF#BD. This gave me D major and B minor triads. But the Bm is a weird 3513 inversion, and 6th chords always sound “off” in blues (though they sound awesome in jazz).

One of the cool aspects of steel guitar is that EVERY tuning is a compromise of one sort or another, which is why there are so many tunings used. Each of us decides which compromises make the most sense for the way we play.

I use that low-bass G tuning on my National Tri-Cone. Nice to have the 1 - 5 bass notes under the thumb sometimes, especially for bluesy tunes. I have played for a long time with a Celtic performer who plays a lot in the key of D, and I love that G tuning for playing in D.

And my main 8 string steel tuning is G6. EGBDEGBD

David Knutson wrote:I use that low-bass G tuning on my National Tri-Cone. Nice to have the 1 - 5 bass notes under the thumb sometimes, especially for bluesy tunes. I have played for a long time with a Celtic performer who plays a lot in the key of D, and I love that G tuning for playing in D.

And my main 8 string steel tuning is G6. EGBDEGBD

Cool. And I see you live nearby. Maybe we can hang out and jam after the Covid ends!

An aside. Since I tune my 7 string steels reentrant, I decided to try adding another G string to string 7. It’s the same pitch as the 3rd string. Again, I could have gone for more versatility by using an E for G6, or an F for G7, but the high G is actually pretty nice. Maybe I’ll eventually get a sound sample up.

I have calibrated shims that I can use to hold down the 2 and 3 levers on my D tuned Duesenberg. I then just need to retune the 5th string to G and I have low bass G
I have another instrument in Dobro G

Bob Brozman played almost all of his stuff in low bass G, both overhand and underhand on his tricones, at a seminar he gave in the '80s.

I am curious about the Low A tuning. I am helping a disabled friend set up a 6 string for playing blues. We discovered several things:
He needs to strum, not pick, but he can strum one or several strings at a time.
He needs to strum in reverse, so we need to string the guitar with the bottom strings furthest away.
We need a straight across dominant chord. We tried an E7 tuning, but the extra notes got in the way.
I am thinking that the Low A will be a good tuning for him. It gives a nice 5-1, 5-1 on the bottom, and the the root-third on the top should be fun to play with.
I think we will restring his little Rogue next week.