Zane Beck talked me into taking on his tuning in 1977 after Scotty’s Convention. I’d only had a pedal steel (Sho Bud Pro II?) for about a year and a half … hadn’t even thought about the C6th! A visit to Zane’s place in Scranton and a bit of a “you can get this and you can get that on my tuning” and he gave me his guitar (I believe the one he played on “12 + 14 = Country Jazz” with Julian Tharpe) to take back home to Australia. He trusted me to send the money when I got back home! I honoured that trust as soon as I could after returning.
So I started my discovery of his tuning. Because I had all the Jeff Newman courses at the time I started exploring Zane’s tuning in terms of the E9th and was quickly able translate E9th TAB. It’s mostly all there, you know, with a few variations/compromises. Similarly, I set up tonal relationship charts for the C6th tuning & pedals/levers. They’re mostly all there as well. Zane’s tuning is probably the simplest “universal tuning” although few people realise this. Four floor pedals, for a start, is a great advantage over the cumbersome foot dancing that the “standard universal” tuning affords.
Zane knew that steel players are innately conservative when it comes to trying something different … it has to have the stamp of approval of a major player before it’s acceptable. Hence he used to call his tuning “E9th with an added 6th” … which is, in essence E13th …
“E13th pedal steel!!! … nah too hard … but I might just try Zane Beck’s E9th (with an added 6th)”
Here’s the good oil on Zane Beck’s E13th tuning:
<font face="monospace" size="3"><pre>
LKL LKV LKR p1 p2 p3 p4 RKL RKR
1 G# A A
2 F# G
3 E Eb F F#
4 C# D D D#
5 B C# C
6 G# A A
7 F# F F
8 D Eb E
9 B C# Bb
10 G# G A
11 E Eb F#
12 B C# Bb
</pre></font>
The open strings give you all the strings (bar string
of an E9th tuning as well as an expanded range taking you an octave lower (low B). The “chromatics” are “in line” with the equivalent to string 2 being pitched to “C#” (ZB’s string 4). When you use the 3rd floor pedal (which raises the B’s to C#) you also raise that 2nd string equivalent to “D” (this is then the equivalent of the ½ stop found in typical E9th). You achieve the full equivalent of the E9th 2nd string when you activate RKL which raises the 4th string to “D#” while giving you the E9th equivalent to string 8 (by raising ZB’s string 8 “D” to “E”). The 2nd string equivalents are all positive stops. Because the tuning requires “grips” to achieve the equivalents to adjacent strings 3,4 and 5 on E9th, it all starts to look “alien” to a “died in the wool” E9th player.The ABC pedal equivalents are 324 … hence a “Day” style setup. Pedal 4 emulates the C pedal of E9th but is not exact because it relies on pedal 3 to achieve the “B to C#” raise.
The B pedal equivalent is really clever! Because Zane was a thinker he didn’t just go out and raise string 10 to “A” (he left that to pedal 4). Instead, by going down one semitone he created the equivalent to the “F” string in the C6th tuning (in a different position). By activating pedal 2 & the up lever only you get the following “G” root chord (tonally): 1 3 5 7 9 3 5 6 7 9 (strings 10 to 1,) which equates to the open tuning C6th “F” chord 1 3 5 7 9 3 5 7 9 (strings 9 to 1). That big Major 9th chord (with the addition of an extra 6th tone on string 3).
The open tuning is also very clever and his choice of an 8th string “D” note instead of the “E” (opted for in the orthodox “universal tuning”) was for a very good reason and why his tuning is so elegant. In terms of tones, using “E” as a root note, Zane’s tuning is: 5 1 3 5 b7 9 3 5 6 1 9 3. Compare this to the C6th tuning with pedal 6 using “F” as a root note where you have: 5 1 3 5 b7 9 3 5 1. This is exactly the same but, (with ZB’s tuning), you also get the 13th tone (6) on string 4 and the 9th tone on string 2 without having to substitute a “D” string for the “G” string as Buddy Emmons did. Zane was thinking music as much as he was thinking tunings when he settled on his layout.
The LKL gives you B6th tuning with the tones: 1 3 6 1 3 5 6 1 9 3 5 6
whereas open C6th gives you: 1 4 6 1 3 5 6 1 3 5. Note that ZB’s tuning replaces the low 4th tone with a 3rd and gives you the rest of the C6th tones with the addition of a high 6th on string 1 but with the “intervention” of a 9th tone at string 4 (the “D” equivalent in the Emmons setup). At the same time the LKL functions the same as your 4 & 8 string semitone lower in “E9th” mode.
Pedal 1 is the rough equivalent of pedals 5 & 6 on the Jimmy Day setup. The tonal comparison using “B” & “C” respectively as root notes is. ZB: 9 4 6 1 b3 b5 6 1 9 4 #5 6
& JD C6th: 9 b5 6 1 b3 b5 6 1 4 #5. Certainly fairly close.
But, everything’s a compromise, and the tuning doesn’t make the player. It’s the other way round.
I hope there’s food for thought there.
Graham
<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Graham Griffith on 05 October 2002 at 02:03 AM.]</p></FONT>
