A little help reading a chord chart.

[Paul Handley]

I found this chart on YT for C6 Tuning and was wondering how to read it.



The main image is the guitar tuned to c6.
[1] there are three sets of chords: Major, Minor and 7th.
[2] Up above the strings are two areas. Major with blue background and minor with green background.
[3] They each cover three strings; major 6,5,and 4, and minor 3,2,1.

[4] Does this mean that I get a major chord strumming the first three strings and a minor strumming the 3,2,1 strings?

[5] The minor 7th then would be strings 4,3,2,1 ?

Is it that simple or am I just deluding myself?

Paul

[Allan Revich]

I found this chart on YT for C6 Tuning and was wondering how to read it.



The main image is the guitar tuned to c6.
[1] there are three sets of chords: Major, Minor and 7th.
[2] Up above the strings are two areas. Major with blue background and minor with green background.
[3] They each cover three strings; major 6,5,and 4, and minor 3,2,1.

[4] Does this mean that I get a major chord strumming the first three strings and a minor strumming the 3,2,1 strings?

[5] The minor 7th then would be strings 4,3,2,1 ?

Is it that simple or am I just deluding myself?

Paul

The short answer is “yes, it is that simple”. The long answer is that lap steel is difficult to play without a good understanding of how chords are structured (music theory).
What is a major chord? Why is it major? What is a minor chord? What’s a triad? What are extended chords? What is a 7 chord, a 9 chord? Major 7th vs dominant 7th? Unlike the regular tuned “armpit” guitar, where you can just learn shapes and patterns, lap steel requires an understanding of what’s going on musically.

[Nic Neufeld]

Just clarifying, you mentioned "7th chords"...usually if you say a 7th chord the implicit is a (major) dominant 7th like this 1-3-5-b7. You can get those in C6 with slants but no need to worry about that yet. The straight bar 7th chord here is a minor 7th (1-b3-5-b7), which are generally always called a minor 7 (Am7, A-7, Amin7) so you would want to be careful not to confuse them with standard dom 7 chords (usually written just as "A7"). Only difference is whether the 3rd is flattened or not...

[Paul Handley]

Thanks, Allen for the quick reply. I'm glad to know that I was correct. I do remember some music theory. I took violin lessons when I was young and some organ lessons when I was a young man so Major, minor 7th, augmented and diminished, are not strangers, although I still need to learn a lot. It seems to me that some guitarists just want to learn patterns and slap and bang the guitar around. You wouldn't know they were playing an actual song if they didn't scream it at you. That's why I chose Lap steel and if I have to start with "Hot Cross Buns", so be it. At least I will be doing it correctly. I like all types of music so it's hard to specialize

[Fred Treece]

Don’t forget the reason it’s called C6 tuning. Your other 4-note chord is on open strings 6-5-4-3 (C-E-G-A), the C major 6th chord.

For that matter, the other two sets of 4 adjacent strings in the open position are inversions of both C6 and Am7, as is a big strum across all 6.

[Paul Handley]

Thanks Fred. I understand now why it's called a C6 tuning! Tell me though, Can I make my own charts like this for other open tunings and calculate the minors, 7ths and other chords, or do I need a masters in music to attempt it? I'm pretty comfortable with math and some music theory. Where would I learn how to do it?

[Bill McCloskey]

I just speadsheet it Paul. John Ely has a chord finder on his site that you can use for any tuning as well.

[Paul Handley]

Thanks, Bill. I played around a little with John Ely's Chord Locator a bit. Looks like it will be some work to do before I get it as readable as the chart above, if I ever do. I couldn't find any other tunings like the one laid out like the one above so the method must not be consistent with other tunings. It was asking too much to think it was.
I think I need more musical theory under my belt!

I wonder where I could find some organized Musical theory lessons that would take from basic to well as far as it can go?

[Bill McCloskey]

Lessons with troy is a good start.

[Bill McCloskey]

I create my own spread sheets for my tuning. Here is an example of mapping out major triad grips:

[Paul Handley]

Thanks, Bill Troy might be an option but I was thinking of online college courses with text books.
Those spreadsheet charts look good. I take it you have a 10 string LS?
I just had another major epiphany!
I was just wathing this guy, Doug something or other playing "Send Me the Pillow That You Dream On" on a Rouge LS. He was playing the melody! I can do this! Why am I worrying about chords at this stage? I thought guitars were all about chords and strumming! Now it makes sense.

[Fred Treece]

I was just wathing this guy, Doug something or other playing "Send Me the Pillow That You Dream On" on a Rouge LS. He was playing the melody! I can do this! Why am I worrying about chords at this stage? I thought guitars were all about chords and strumming! Now it makes sense.

Doug Beaumier is one of those master players that makes it look easy. I don’t know him personally, but having seen enough of his videos I can safely say that he knows his instruments and his music inside out. You could do a lot worse than following his example.

[Paul Handley]

Thanks Fred. I didn't mean to imply that it is easy. Yeah I could stumble along and play each note and with practice someone might recognize the song but I don't kid myself. At 78 I don't have enough time left to be anywhere near that good. Answering my many questions, some people have mentioned the other members in the band might help me but there is only me. As long as I'm having fun and learning(which is fun also) I'm content.