Anyone seen this tuning?

[Andy DePaule]

Anyone seen this tuning?
Seems a little like C Diatonic, but not that.
The top 4 strings are just like C6/Am7.

My friend Ralph Novak, a well known luthier had built a simple 8 string lap steel using a bass pickup he had around his workshop.
Told me he tuned it in thirds. It has most of the chords from the C or G scale on any 3 or 4 string tight grip. I'm certainly going to give it a try. Would be easy to retune from a 6th tuning by just lowering the 4 bottom strings, some a whole tone and some just 1/2 tone.

From the bottom up... G B D F A C E G

Ralph invented the Fan Fret system that some player are crazy about. He is also quite a good musician too. Not afraid to try new ideas. This is his web site:
https://novaxguitars.com/info/history.html
http://www.novaxguitars.com

[Allan Revich]

I experimented with a 7 string version of that tuning for a while.

GBDFACE

There are a ton of useful chord combinations n there.

[Joe A. Roberts]

hi-to-lo E C A F D B is a tuning that dates back to the late 30s, early often called G11th.
It was used by some Hawaiian players, like Andy Iona and David Kelii.

https://archive.org/details/78_hoomanaw ... Oness.flac

A great female player named Lovey Lui Conn also used this tuning:
https://wwe.youtube.com/watch?v=8XD0wuO3Qe0


There’s been some threads on this tuning, I remember this one:
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtop ... c50f060de0

[Fred Treece]

It’s a true G13th chord tuning, skipping every other note of a mixolydian scale.
R-3-5-b7-9-11-13-R
I can see great possibilities. Thanks for posting.

[Fred]

It's a C scale in thirds. All the diatonic chords in a major scale are there. I fooled around with it a long time ago because I wanted more chords without a lot of bar movement.

I gave up on it because there are no inversions without a lot of movement. And I'd rather have more dominant chords if possible.

I ended up extending the Leavitt tuning to eight strings. That worked for me but to each his own.

[Rob Fenton]

I gave this a try once and there are a lot of chord possibilities, but yes, as mentioned, few inversions.

It could work for someone who doesn’t mind using equal temperament. I prefer the sound of just intonation, but the tuning becomes quite spread out, with about 22 cents difference between the 2 G strings.

I too ended up using Leavitt on 8 strings, with an F added on the top, and a reentrant Eb on the bottom.

[Cody Farwell]

That's the 'G11' tuning but with an added G on top and on bottom. It's used in a lot of old Hawaiian music.

Lovey Lui played this tuning
https://youtu.be/f8_uzOTaWT4

[Fred Treece]

Looks like you can call it whatever you want to call it.

Nice example there, Cody.

[Joe A. Roberts]

Is my post blank there for everyone else?? It looks blank to me, but when I go to edit, it shows all the text… I’ll try again:

——

hi-to-lo E C A F D B is a tuning that dates back to the late 30s, early often called G11th.
It was used by some Hawaiian players, like Andy Iona and David Kelii.

https://archive.org/details/78_hoomanaw ... Oness.flac

A great female player named Lovey Lui Conn also used this tuning:
https://wwe.youtube.com/watch?v=8XD0wuO3Qe0

.

There’s been some threads on this tuning, I remember this one:
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtop ... c50f060de0

[Tim Toberer]

Lovey Lui played this tuning
https://youtu.be/f8_uzOTaWT4

The tone on this is wild! I don't know what they were doing back in the day to get these tones? Probably A combination of many unintended things, but I just love it. Cool tuning!

[Andy DePaule]

Thanks guys...
Guess this tuning was only new to me.
I enjoyed reading through all the posts.
Best wishes,
Andy