Middle six of pedal steel for lap steel/dobro?

[Darrell Criswell]

What about tuning a lap steel or dobro guitar to the middle six strings of the E9 pedal steel, for practice and for learning. Can I get any decent sounds with it or is it just a waste of time? Or would I be better off using the lower six strings of the E9 pedal steel? Thanks so much!

[J Fletcher]

So , do you have a pedal steel at this time , or are you looking to get started without one ?

[Andrew Frost]

I have explored that tuning on lap steel, it has some very good qualities.
As a tuning, the 'add9' is pretty modern sounding, with no 7th or 6th present.

It certainly would help with E9 fretboard understanding.
Try it out and see for yourself if you like it or not.

[D Schubert]

Seems to me there is one big difference to deal with, using a six-string E tuning for your purpose, and that is that a pedal guitar has the 5th and 6th on one string, while many of the interesting non-pedal E tunings have the 5th and 6th on adjacent strings.

Suggestion 1: Tune your six-string to A6, to mimic the A and B pedals down.

Suggestion 2: Tune your six-string to E6 and add a two-string bender to mimic the pedals. I did set up a lap steel this way, from bottom to top

B C# E G# B E without bender
B C# E A C# A with bender activated

Someone will likely have other suggestions, just as good as these

[Bill McCloskey]

The alkire tuning is a great tuning if you play E9. There is a six string version. Here is a video of me playing America the beautiful on a six sting squareneck https://youtu.be/vL5Jo1gdUBk?si=DNz90oDTz6qdIUx6

[Darrell Criswell]

So , do you have a pedal steel at this time , or are you looking to get started without one ?

I have a pedal steel but want something to practice on when I travel. The pedal steel is just too heavy and expensive to haul around.

[Darrell Criswell]

I have explored that tuning on lap steel, it has some very good qualities.
As a tuning, the 'add9' is pretty modern sounding, with no 7th or 6th present.

It certainly would help with E9 fretboard understanding.
Try it out and see for yourself if you like it or not.

What are you referring to as Add9 tuning? Thanks

[Jim Fogarty]

As a tuning, the 'add9' is pretty modern sounding, with no 7th or 6th present.

What are you referring to as Add9 tuning? Thanks

Not Andrew, but he's saying that:

E-F#-G#-B-E-G# (middle six strings of E9)

is an E major chord, with the 9th (F#) added.

[J Fletcher]

Bottom six of the E9 for me . I warm up every day on those strings , playing scales , 2 octave whole tone C scale , C major and all the associated modes , C diminished . Major chords , minor chords , 7th chords , 9th chords too . Lots to practice the left and right hands there . No pedals needed for any of that .Jerry

[Fred Treece]

Bottom six of the E9 for me

I would probably go for this too. I think there is more traditional musical functionality in that tuning.

But, strings 3-8 present some interesting sounds within a 3 fret span, as well as some cool dobro-esque open string possibilities for hammer-ons and pull-offs. Both tunings present opportunities for slants too.

Come to think of it, any 6 adjacent strings on E9 would do for dobro. It’s a great tuning.

[Andrew Frost]

What are you referring to as Add9 tuning? Thanks

Darrell, if we're to give names to things, the F# is the "9" in E9. Its the 9th step in the E major scale, as Jim described.

With chords, and tunings, if there isn't any kind of 7th tone present, as in the tuning being discussed, we'd call it an "add9". It implies that the chord/tuning does not have any kind of D note present. Its a major chord with a 9th added.

It could also be called "add2" in this case, but the 9 seems more in line with the E9 roots of it.

Apologies if you already have a grip on this. It is all just terms and labels that attempt to describe the sounds of things.

Good luck with it.

[Dave Stagner]

If you have a lap steel already, and it’s suitable, I highly recommend the Certano palm benders (and one of his roller bridges too, if that will work on your guitar). That gives the equivalent of the AB pedals on an E9 pedal steel neck. It’s nice with the guitar tuned DADF#AD, which also gives you a good rock-n-roll/blues slide tuning. Another cool tuning with them is GBDF#AD. The palm benders bring it up to GBDGBD, so you can do dobro licks with the levers down. I’m sure you could do an E9 variant tuning with them too - BEF#G#BE would work and give you more V chord options (hmm, I should try that!).

Of course, the palm levers are poor cousins to a proper pedal steel, but they give you all those E9 AB pedal clichés, and that’s a lot! And the Certano levers are beautifully made, really fine hardware.

[Darrell Criswell]

What are you referring to as Add9 tuning? Thanks

Darrell, if we're to give names to things, the F# is the "9" in E9. Its the 9th step in the E major scale, as Jim described.

With chords, and tunings, if there isn't any kind of 7th tone present, as in the tuning being discussed, we'd call it an "add9". It implies that the chord/tuning does not have any kind of D note present. Its a major chord with a 9th added.

It could also be called "add2" in this case, but the 9 seems more in line with the E9 roots of it.

Apologies if you already have a grip on this. It is all just terms and labels that attempt to describe the sounds of things.

Good luck with it.

Andrew thanks so much for the great explanation. I never fully understood what the 9th meant. Thanks again!

[Fred]

Rather than the middle 6 of E9 I'd go with the top six of the McAuliffe E13. There's a lot of E9 stuff going on in there. Retune either of the bottom two strings to E as needed.

E
C#
B
G#
F#
D