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Post new topic Joaquin Murphey's Bigsby D-8 tuning ca. 1945
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Author Topic:  Joaquin Murphey's Bigsby D-8 tuning ca. 1945
Einar Baldursson


From:
Stockholm, Sweden
Post  Posted 12 Jul 2018 8:58 am    
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Here on Miss Molly for instance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfBdHfg1Gpg&frags=pl%2Cwn

The neck he starts on (further away) seems to be a C6th of sorts. The close neck sounds denser, perhaps an E13th? It seems to me that he often used a similar approach. Solos start with single note lines in C6th or a variation thereof and then evolve to chord based soloing on a tuning more suited to dense, rich sounding chords. Almost reminiscent of Wes Montgomery's approach some 15 years later (minus the octaves)

It seems he experimented quite a bit with tunings and getting a consensus is probably not possible but it would be interesting to hear your opinion on this.
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Scott Thomas

 

Post  Posted 12 Jul 2018 8:03 pm    
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C6th+A7
E
C
A
G
E
C#
A
B

C6th+D9th
E
C
A
G
E
C
A
F#



Perhaps we can start with his tunings as listed on John Ely's website under "Tunings of the Pros".
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Guy Cundell


From:
More idle ramblings from South Australia
Post  Posted 13 Jul 2018 3:07 am    
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This is my take on it.


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Einar Baldursson


From:
Stockholm, Sweden
Post  Posted 14 Jul 2018 2:37 am    
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Scott: Yes either one of those are possible on the outer neck. I'm not sure exactly when he switched to high g but it could also be one of the tunings below. I realise it's hard to tell from this short clip but I'm hoping that someone has studied his style from this period and can provide further insights.

1.G
2.E
3.C
4.A
5.G
6.E
7.C#
8.B(high)

1.G
2.E
3.C
4.A
5.G
6.E
7.C#
8.Bb


Guy: Great job and and a good tuning candidate. How do you think the 8-string version would look? I'm not totally sure about the quick jump to the 8th fret in bar 10. I hear the E top note but maybe not the C...could be my ears though. Also the 9th chord slant right at the start of the second solo sounds just right but when looking at the video I can't see him slanting at all there. Again that could be my eyes playing tricks.
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Einar Baldursson


From:
Stockholm, Sweden
Post  Posted 14 Jul 2018 6:27 am    
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This one works without the slants. Just lower the G's in C6 and you have the D9th tuning. This could mean that, at least on this solo, he had variations of C6 on both necks.



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