Ian Rae wrote:A great reminder that pedals were originally introduced to get a quick change from one tuning to another. The thing where you move them while you're playing came later. Not sure if it'll catch on.
I thought so too until I really delved into C6th. But now I think most changes have a very different evolutionary and historic origin:
Jerry Byrd is said to have "invented" the C6th tuning. Well, with all the love for JB, people played 6th and 13th tunings before. But that being said:
C6th has naturally two chord qualities occurring: C6th and off it's 6th degree (A), Am7th.
It lacks a Dominant side to it as it lacks a Tri-Tone interval. Which is almost funny, as the tuning is in AVERAGE near to diminished tuning. The there are as many minor 3rd adjacent string intervals as there Major third intervals. The existence of the 2nd interval in the "middle" (between G & A) brings it closer to a minor third average and this make playing diminished lines VERY easy even without pedals. Actually, the slight "distortion" of the line of adjacent strings paired in minor third, make it even more easy to get into the "half-whole"/"whole-half" approach to playing with diminished lines over diminished or against dominant chords. Barry Harrys called the diminished the "Mother of Chords" and the C6th tuning lends itself very well to taking advantage of this approach to chords. (but that's a different subject).
JB's C6th ended on the bass side at what today is string #7 on a BE C6th.
Often he tuned that C to C# and later as he got a 7 string B7 Rickenbacher, added C#. C# is the Major 3rd of A. So, he could now have that third chord quality, the Dominant A7th (#9th on top) which we know as P8.
So, that already was a morphing and existing chord into a different quality.
Before that, he could only play 3-note dominants by foreward-slanting in two positions, keeping the top two adjacent strings steady and dropping one a string over in the bass a half step. F7th and D9th... which is what P6 and P5 respectively do.
Since the addition of string #9 with the infamous F note creating the root to a Major 9th (M7, 9th), P7 replicates that chord string by string two strings out (into the higher strings) a 4th, respectively 5th away. That one has no previous slant origin and as far as chords of the tuning may actually be more related to the minor 11th chord occurring taking the 9th string as it's m3rd degree.
A common added change would be the A-to-A# raise which is too, creating yet another dominant chord by raising the 6th degree of open C6th to a b7th.
The fairly "even" distribution of all chord qualities over an octave, in C6th pretty much 4 times, so in average close to every 3 frets is important.
The existence of 4 Dominant positions also give access to the same amount of Half Diminished chord positions (4). This allows the player to cycle any chord in all 12 keys (playing thru the circle of 4ths/5ths) anywhere on the fretboard within 3 frets. THAT is quite amazing! Because it lets one play thru the circle of 4ths/5ths every 3 frets, so in four 3-frets spaces.
... J-D.
