With the recent interest in these tunings, here is a comparison of the two tunings used for Andy Iona’s ‘Naughty Hula Eyes’. The first is Danny Stewart’s intro using E7 on the first recording of Iona’s composition in 1935 on electric steel. The second uses C#m and is an arrangement that Billy Tonnesen (RIP) sent to me. As a student in the early 1940s, he was made to copy it out by his teacher George Ka’ahiki.
The first arrangement is simple but uses the dominant 7th chord for colouring. I love that little maj 7th touch in the intro. Iona’s vocal arrangement really shines.
The second arrangement is much more complex using the 6th sonority frequently. While it doesn’t explicitly use the tuning as a minor chord, personally I would continue using the terminology ‘C#m’, firstly as a historical reference but secondly to differentiate it from regular 6th tunings (C6, A6) that have the 5th degree in close voicing. The perfect 4th interval that occurs when it is omitted is a significant difference.
While it doesn’t explicitly use the tuning as a minor chord, personally I would continue using the terminology ‘C#m’, firstly as a historical reference but secondly to differentiate it from regular 6th tunings (C6, A6) that have the 5th degree in close voicing. The perfect 4th interval that occurs when it is omitted is a significant difference.
Yah at this point it would probably confuse people even further (Is that possible?) if we just started calling it E6. When I first started, I played with this tuning for a few weeks without realizing it was actually E6 because it was never described that way. I think of E6 as G#-B-C#-E-G#-B-C#-E which is a wonderful tuning, but I can't think of a single person who uses it. On one of my pedal guitar pedals 3&4 create this tuning. The Don Helms version would be E-G#-B-C#-E-G#.
I did a little search and I was surprised to find out that there are seemingly very few recordings made with this tuning (C#m AKA E6 with a missing 5th in the top octave). Can someone enlighten me? I would like to hear some recordings of how the masters used it. I was teased to find an old post with a broken link from Mike Neer where he shared a whole concert using this tuning! I would love to hear that if it is still available somewhere.
I love this tuning for Hawaiian, jazzy pop tunes, rags and country blues. For me, the meat of the tuning is in the top four strings which makes it an easy retune from A Maj high bass (or standard dobro tuning) without changing string gauges, and provides an immediate tonal shift.
You can play around with the fifth and sixth strings to get others tunings that are fun as well, although you may have to change the strings gages. Still the voicing of the top four strings remains the same and there is a lot of good music to made with it.
It allows for easy adjacent and alternate string harmonies with both straight and slanted bar; and sometimes less is more. One thing I like is it pushes me to work more horizontally up and down the neck than I do with standard C6. There is also a visual relationship to standard guitar tuning that comes in handy at times.
Check out Bud Tutmarc on YouTube playing Twilight Blues and The Emerson's recordings from the 1970's and of course Sebastian Mueller.
Tim Toberer wrote:
I did a little search and I was surprised to find out that there are seemingly very few recordings made with this tuning (C#m AKA E6 with a missing 5th in the top octave). Can someone enlighten me?
There is a vast library of C#m recordings. Most of Sol's electric recordings, many from Dick MacIntire. MacAuliffe was an excellent C#m player, Herb Remington's Bootheel Drag. Murphey's goto chord solo tuning was F#9, a variant with the same top strings but with the bottom E raised to F# and the 5th string dropped a semitone. Also used by MacIntire. It is the tuning that Jerry Byrd first heard on a Hawaiian movie soundtrack and then ran home with it in his head to work it out on the guitar.
There is so much! You can find more detail in my thesis.
Guy Cundell wrote:
There is a vast library of C#m recordings.
I got to admit I didn't look very long, thanks for the leads! One of the hardest things about this stuff is it seems most of the time you just don't know the tuning, I suppose with time and a good ear, you learn to distinguish.
