e7 tuning on a six string

David McGuire · Post by **David McGuire** » 5 Apr 2012 12:51 pm

I wish I could find more info on this tuning as it seems to be exactly what I'm looking for....I want to emulate a pedal steel for some country type stuff...that will have to work until I can afford a real one.

Post by **Brad Bechtel** » 5 Apr 2012 2:24 pm

What additional information would you like, David?

David McGuire · Post by **David McGuire** » 6 Apr 2012 12:52 am

Hey Brad..maybe just a few examples of some pedal steel licks or runs using the tuning....and some info on minor chords...I'm using (low to high) B..D..E..G#..B..E. I also saw someone mention tuning the fourth string E up to a F# to get more of a E9 sound....I would also like some examples of that as well. Also, any recommendations of songs to try and figure out using either variation of the two. Thank you in advance.

David McGuire · Post by **David McGuire** » 6 Apr 2012 12:57 pm

Bill A. Moore wrote:I recently discovered this tuning from a guy on e-bay. I bought his DVD where he does some cool pulls with his finger behind the bar, sounds a little like pedal steel!

What was his name Bill?

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 7 Apr 2012 9:07 am

David McGuire wrote:...I want to emulate a pedal steel for some country type stuff...

It may be just my opinion, but if you want to emulate a country sound E7 is not the way to do it. You would be better with G or C6.

Nicholas Ackron · Post by **Nicholas Ackron** » 10 Apr 2012 9:59 pm

E7th is common in the Sacred steel arena for lap steelers from low to high its: E,B,E,G#,B,E

Karl Fehrenbach · Post by **Karl Fehrenbach** » 13 Apr 2012 10:59 am

This thread has been bouncing along for a couple of years it seems. I had to check out what this was all about and so I went to a music store nearby and bought the Mel Bay book by Roger Filiberto. It really is a serious course book in steel guitar employing E7. It is not for the faint of heart, and if one sticks with the book all the way through, you might end up being an accomplished musician comfortable with sight reading standard musical notation. I am really thinking about giving this a serious shot and changing my tuning to this B,D,E, G#,B, E versus the Open E, B, E, G#, B, E I have been using with the band. The suggestion of using C# on string 2 is intriguing as well to get into the Santo and Johnny sound of C#m7. The amount of information available on this forum continues to astound me. Thanks to all who chime in.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 13 Apr 2012 11:09 am

Change the 4th string E to F# and it's even cooler, I promise.

David McGuire · Post by **David McGuire** » 13 Apr 2012 1:22 pm

Does that make it closer to a E9? I'm going to tune it up in a bit.

James Hartman · Post by **James Hartman** » 14 Apr 2012 5:05 am

Lately I've been using the B, D, E, G#, B, E tuning for blues or rock. As previously noted, the G#, B, E on top covers the typical sacred steel sound and the closely related blues playing of someone like Hop Wilson, not to mention Duane Allman or other slide players from the blues/rock world.

If you're playing blues or blues inflected rock, sooner or later you're going to want to play that Elmore James lick

so you need the 4th interval between some higher pair of adjacent strings.

Of course, C# on the 2nd string and F# on the 4th are nice options, but they take the tuning to a somewhat different place, style-wise.

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 14 Apr 2012 7:21 am

If your goal is to sound like the pedal steel E9th, you'll need that high G# string. Don Helms' E6th was the forerunner of that sound. You can emulate the pedal sounds with bar slants. You need lighter string gauges, though. These are the gauges I use on my Stringmaster:
[tab]G# .012
E .015
C# .018
B .020
G# .024
E .034 [/tab]
These are the same intervals as the popular C6th tuning, just tuned higher. Switching from the old-time Hank Williams E6th sound to more modern pedal steel licks is something that you do in your mind. I can play Tom Brumley's Together Again solo note-for-note like the record on this tuning, and it does sound like an E9th pedal steel.

David McGuire · Post by **David McGuire** » 15 Apr 2012 5:24 am

I've been messing around with the Little Roy Wiggins tune from Youtube called "I'll hold you in my heart" and the intro falls pretty easily into place with the E7 tuning BDEG#BE.

David McGuire · Post by **David McGuire** » 16 Apr 2012 3:42 pm

I tried tuning that fourth string up to F# but it just lost me.

Mike Neer · Post by **Mike Neer** » 16 Apr 2012 5:28 pm

David McGuire wrote:I tried tuning that fourth string up to F# but it just lost me.

You can't just give up on it--you have to spend a lot of time getting inside these tunings and finding out how the steel players approach it. I know, I've been there.

For one, strings 2, 3 and 4 give you the same structure as 2, 3 and 4 in C6--that goes a long way. Secondly, if you look at the bottom 3 strings, it spells Bmin. That is where your 9th chord is--slide it up 2 frets and back down and you have one of the most common 9th sounds in western music.

You've got to keep digging--and that goes for all of your tunings. You'll be discovering new stuff for years.

Steven Pearce · Post by **Steven Pearce** » 19 Jan 2018 2:00 pm

Hello to all...
About a year ago, I started working with a six string tuning B D E G B D
Yesterday I did a search here for that tuning, and found a thread from 2012:
E7th tuning on a six string. B D E G# B E. Mike Neer talked about tuning the
4th string E to an F#. Ok sorry I got long winded, hereâ€™s the part Iâ€™ll always remember.
It should be rule number one in the book of â€˜What Tuning Should I Try?
Hereâ€™s what Mike said...

â€œYou can't just give up on it--you have to spend a lot of time getting inside these tunings and finding out how the steel players approach it. I know, I've been there.â€

Thank you for that.
Steve Pearce

The Steel Guitar Forum

e7 tuning on a six string

Wisdom from Mike Neer