C6 added 9th Tuning

[Tony Dingus]

Anybody tune their C6 like this :

1-D
2-E
3-C
4-A
5-G
6-E
7-D
8-C
9-A
10-F

Tony

[Peter Freiberger]

I believe Terry Crisp and Wayne Dahl have used that middle D. I don't know if they do currently.

[Ian Rae]

There is an argument that that low D gives a melody note like string one, and is more use than a 10th string C.

But for me it would mess up the grips too much.

[Tony Dingus]

I was told that Terry tuned his that way. I remember seeing a few years ago Paul Franklin had a pedal that pulled strings 7,8 and 9 to get tuning. He doesn't have it now. I've played E9 for 45 years and have had 4 D10's through out the years but never could really get anywhere with it so I thought about trying this tuning just to have something familiar but yet different. I appreciate both of your replies.

Tony

[Jim Hoke]

Yeah - what Tony said. The Paul Franklin thing of raising those strings to get that D in there is great. Also the A to C gives you 3 consecutive whole-step-apart strings (C-D-E) which is great for playing melodies with scale steps. I had that for a while - can't remember why I got off it. I didn't raise the F to A. I thought it'd be too much pull. I did raise it to G and that gives a great many possibilities - like a big low 5th with the low C string - power chord city! Lots of other stuff too. You should def try this change - you'll have all kinds of fun.

[Tony Dingus]

Hey Jim, I've got it tuned with the D in the middle but I've thought about just raising the C and A . Time will tell which way I go.

Tony

[Bob Hoffnar]

Anybody tune their C6 like this :

1-D
2-E
3-C
4-A
5-G
6-E
7-D
8-C
9-A
10-F

Tony

That's how I tune. Works for me. I found it more useful on a practical level and musically. The low C just seemed to muddy up things in ensemble playing and the middle D gives me a way to play the scale passages and chord voicings my ear goes to. (Primarily quartal type). Quite a bit of muscle memory from the E9 neck apply too.

[Dale Rottacker]

I hate reading stuff like this, cause now I may have to try it. Seems like if you do change the 7th string, you're also required to change 8,9 & 10... just about half the tuning.

Are you all changing string gauges tuning this way or just retuning your standard strings.

I bought Wayne Dahls Rittenberry Prestige Prototype a few years back, before I started playing C6th, but did have a little familiarity with the C6th tuning. Now I'm wondering if this is what Wayne had his C6th tuned too, which I could not make sense of, so tore it all down and put a standard C6th tuning on it.

I do know that I often wish I could raise that 7th string, but I'm so oriented to the tuning with the 7, 8 and 9th string roots, that for me may be a bigger step than I may want to take.

Appears that the BooWah pedal would need to be changed, as well the raise and lower I currently have on the 8th A string if moved as well as the reconfiguring the 5th pedal 10th string, and my MKL where I'm lowering the G to F and the 10th string C to D. Think I got a headache

[J D Sauser]

I lower my low E a whole step to D with a knee lever.
Yes, tha Maj. 3rd interval between C & E creates a bit of a “hole” while playing single notes. Having another Maj. 2nd adjacent interval DOES come in handy in the lower yet “playable” register for faster single note picking.
It also rounds off the Dm9th side of the tuning and is great paired the C’s-to-C# raise with “P5” for more “upper structure” sounds in both, minor and Major.
The draw back is that it changes grip shapes which on C6th are relatively consistant and it similarly messes with the fairly easily paired diminished runs. This is why I rather have it on a change.

Now let’s keep in mind that C6th are usually found on double neck guitars usually decked with E9th levers, while I play an S12 dedicated to C6th alone with as many changes as a loaded Universal.

Upon Maurice Anderson’s advice, I have a bottom D instead below the F-string (instead of the low C). The reasoning(s) for that is (are) different: One would be that it gives me the missing 4rth root “tracker” (the relaive minor root to the F Maj chord, similar to the A-string being the root tracker of the relative minor to the C-string before it) to break up the octave in essentially 4 playing positions in AVERAGE (not exactly) a minor third apart: 3, 4, 3, 2 frets apart from each other. The resulting root-tracker based pockets grow to touch each other by exploration.
With that I can cycle in 4ths thru all 12 keys withhin 3 frets anywhere on the neck.
In other words, I can play in any key, where ever I want along the strings.

Since I play 12 string guitars, and didn’t find anything more useful to put on top, and eventually ditched the high G-string, I moved the whole tuning up one string and now have the low C on the bottom end too. Inside out D & B on top.
I lower the low D half with “P8” along with the low C going down to A.

I think that putting D’s “inside” is still worth considdering… which get’s the tuning one string (B) short of Diatonic (a tuning concept Jerry Byrd used extensively after his Nashville years)

… JD.