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Topic: C6th vs G Am I missing out...... |
Chris Templeton
From:
The Green Mountain State
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 18 Apr 2015 7:02 am |
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The main thing is to learn a tuning backward and forward and over time you find all kinds of things in there that maybe you weren't aware of before.
Howard Parker made a comment, don't recall if it was here or on one of the resonator forums and I'm paraphrasing, that in the making of his final recording, the superb Grammy nominated Three Bells, Mike Auldridge, a student up to the end said that in working closely with Jerry Douglas and Rob Ickes on the project, he came to the realization that Rob knew the fretboard better then he did.
Being that he is originally a Bay Area boy and I've been here most of life, I've known Rob Ickes on a casual basis for a bunch of years and in watching his playing progress I don't know that anyone has ever worked any harder at understanding his instrument than Rob. And though he occasionally ventures into other tunings, it's pretty rare - he has made a practice of playing Open G the overwhelming majority of the time. And this is in multiple genres of music, not just bluegrass, as evidenced in the earlier link to his version of "If I Can't Make You Love Me."
If one plays a certain genre of music most of the time and there is a tuning that is particularly suited to it then I think would behoove them to become proficient in that tuning.
For the spider bridge, large cone resonator guitar it seems that the tunings that come closest to being the Swiss army knife that can do it all if one really learns the fretboard backward and forward are 1. Open G and 2. Open D.
I fool around with the tuning Greg Booth uses, EBDGBD low-to-high, and what I like about the is the 6th or E being on string 6 is not in the middle of the "intersection," and it seems there is less chance of me screwing it up by hitting wrong notes, having it on string 6 seems a little more comfortable to me.
My problem, and I know I'm not alone, is when I play an alternate tuning I have to be really careful what to avoid so that I'm not hitting wrong notes due to something related to muscle memory. Many players of the steel guitar family of instruments will discuss here and elsewhere multiple tunings they use. I'd really like to be one of those guys, but unless Leonard Nimoy rises from the dead and we do some sort of a Vulcan mind meld to where I am instantly enlightened to be able to competently play several different tunings, when in Rome I'll do as the Romans do and stick with the most popular dobro tuning.
A few weeks ago Mike Witcher taught a Sunday workshop in Berkeley, it was a a lot of fun and I came home with some good homework assignments. You wouldn't benefit much from the teaching that day if you showed up with a resonator tuned to C6th any more than if you went to a flattop guitar workshop where the instructor tuned to standard, and you always play something like DADGAD.
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Mark |
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Russell Baker
From:
Owego NY, USA
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Posted 18 Apr 2015 7:52 am
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I have definately decided to learn Dobro in G and Laps Steel in C6th.
Funny you mention muscle memory...
At at a rehearsal last night we started to play a song
we haven't done in quite a while, I got though it and when we were done I said I had totally forgot exactly what chords where in the song and I was hoping that if I just "played the song" and not tried to think about it muscle memory would take over. I played the song pretty well!
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R.E. Baker
There's lots more of me where I come from! |
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Edward Meisse
From:
Santa Rosa, California, USA
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Posted 18 Apr 2015 7:38 pm
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| Stephen Abruzzo wrote: |
| Edward Meisse wrote: |
| BTW, they are also closest to the original slack key tunings that we originally used back in the 1880s and 90s. |
Damn Ed......"we" huh? That would put you about 150 years old. Congrats on making it that far.  |
 ...were originally used.... I left the original post as it was. Everybody can use a good laugh now and then.
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Edward Meisse
From:
Santa Rosa, California, USA
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Posted 18 Apr 2015 7:49 pm
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"The main thing is to learn a tuning backward and forward and over time you find all kinds of things in there that maybe you weren't aware of before."-Mark Eaton
I agree again. Which is why I have finally settled on one tuning and one number of strings. And one can play any style in any tuning. But the tunings do sound different. The two experiences I've had are with getting nasty looks for playing bluegrass in C6 and for getting a remark from a very good G tuning player about I was able to play the melody in a very fast moving swing tune (cant remember exactly which one). So I say, to each his own. Also, I'm resigned to the fact that I'm never going to play as well as Auldridge, Ickes, Cardine or Douglas no matter what tuning I use. It takes a kind of devotion to the instrument that I can't muster up.
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Amor vincit omnia |
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Veit Doehler
From:
Hamburg, Germany
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Posted 23 Apr 2015 10:17 am
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Funnny thing.... I played the link above (gypsy jazz dobro) to my partner without telling her about this thread and asked her what she thought about it. She answered right away: 'kinda nice, but he plays a funnny tuning'.  Maybe that's because of the style he plays with all these bluegrass hammer-ons and pull-offs.
Otherwise personally I'm completely with Edward. Just C6, also for fiddle tunes etc. Works well.
And I wonder what people said, when the old Hawaiians started to experiment with other tunings in the 20s/30s. "Hawaiian music can only be played with A-major"? |
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Edward Meisse
From:
Santa Rosa, California, USA
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Posted 23 Apr 2015 11:43 am
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Just to clarify, I said just C6 for me. I also said, to each his own. Rather than comparing the steel guitar to the violin, as was done earlier, I would compare it to.....hold your breath now......the banjo. Tenor, Dixieland and Bluegrass/Old Timey use 3 different tunings and also use and/or emphasize different techniques. Steel Guitar is going to play out the same way, I think. I have played gypsy jazz in C6. Including slants I was able to play minor 7th, Major 6, Major and minor triads, triple stop approximations of 9th chords, dominant 7th chords minus the 3rd, major seventh chords minus the root, Augmented and diminished chords in any key, without capo, in time. For swing and jazz based pop, the 6th tunings (C6,G6, E6, A6) just can't be beat. But for bluegrass and old timey, open G is going to sound much better. And for rock and rock oriented as well as a lot of other blues, open D and E are preferred. As was pointed out several times above, you CAN play anything in any tuning. But as Veit just pointed out and I pointed out a little earlier, you may sound more than a little out of place. So I say, play one tuning as well as you can before thinking about playing others. But be sure you understand stylistic emphasis of the tuning you choose. It WILL place some limits on you.
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Amor vincit omnia |
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