The Steel Guitar Forum

Starting from the standard Open D, DADF#AD, I put a dominant 7 on the 2nd string for a D7 tuning. Nothing unusual about that, and a fairly standard tuning. But adding the flat 3rd as a reentrant string opens up a world of possibilities.

On seven strings, low to high it’s fDADF#CD
Also doable on six strings as fADF#CD

Great for arpeggios as you have 5/6 notes of the blues scale at root position. Also great for flipping between major and minor chords up and down the neck, simply by omitting the appropriate 3rd. The “f” doesn’t necessarily have to be reentrant but it sounds bluesier to my ear this way.

For an “all around” tuning it’s hard to beat a 6th or 13th tuning, but for blues, I think this tuning rocks.

I'm looking forward to playing around with this. Also brings me closer to the idea of owning a 7-string steel. Thanks for posting, Allan.

Here are a couple of samples of the tuning in action...

https://youtu.be/6fhXkdnKEAU (blues improv)

https://youtu.be/8Je3oPjW35I (harder blues/rock riff)

Do you always play with a flat pick?

Bill McCloskey wrote:Do you always play with a flat pick?

Yes, but I often use finger picks on my third and fourth fingers with it.

Cliff Swanson wrote:I'm looking forward to playing around with this. Also brings me closer to the idea of owning a 7-string steel. Thanks for posting, Allan.

I’m interested in how you liked the tuning.

I’ve actually returned to my previous D/Dm tuning, without the dominant 7. Something about that 7 seemed to give everything I played the same flavour.