C6 Tuning on 6 String, Bar Slants?

[W. Johnson]

Lately, (as in the last week or so), I've been playing my 6 string lap steel in the C6 tuning. The more I use this tuning, the more I like it. I'm kind of baffled as to why anyone would think this tuning is 'dated'? Maybe there is a better tuning?

(Prior to using the C6 tuning, I have been playing my lap steel that has several palm levers to obtain various chords.)

I'm using the tuning: C - E - G - A - C - E. Because my fingers have arthritis in them, I have to play with a flat pick.

Anyway, I'm wondering about bar slants, and the various chords that can be obtained. In particular, what is a good way to get a dominant 7th chord, or M7 chord?

W. Johnson

[Dave Broyles]

A very common variation of the C6 tuning is C6/A7, achieved by tuning your low C to C# (C#,E,G,A,C,E). This gives you the dominate chords on the lower 4 strings.

[W. Johnson]

A very common variation of the C6 tuning is C6/A7, achieved by tuning your low C to C# (C#,E,G,A,C,E). This gives you the dominate chords on the lower 4 strings.

This looks interesting, I'll try it out.

Thanks,
Wayne

[Greg Moynihan]

I like the sound of playing the third on the low E string and the minor 7th on the A string with a forward slant, for example, as a partial C7:

x
x
13
x
12
x

Then, you can do this nifty harmonic shortcut by shifting both notes one fret lower, which gives you an inversion of F7:

x
x
12
x
11
x

Also, if you have a round-nose bar, you can wedge the curve between the A and the high C string. If the size of the bar agrees with your string spacing, then, with practice, this will sound three notes in an F7:

x
12
12
x
11
x

And, finally, G7 can be obtained by moving this chord two frets higher:

x
14
14
x
13
x

Hope this helps!

[Edward Meisse]

There are several books for 6 string C6 lap steel for sale here on the forum. Any one of them would be very helpful. I'm familiar with the De Witt Scott book. So I can recommend that outright.

[Joe Burke]

Thanks Greg! I've recently started playing C6 (moving from G). Playing slant chords is what makes playing steel great.

[W. Johnson]

Thanks guys for the help. I'll try some of the bar slants out. I'll also check out the book(s).

Wayne

[Michael James]

I use the Cma11 tuning. CEGBDF - Low to High. This tuning has a lot of slant options.

[Mike Neer]

Some super cool and useful slants for a Dom 7 chord with the 7th and root on the 1st string:

[tab]
---6-------------8-----------
---------------------------
---7-------------7---------
---------------------------
---8-------------6---------
----------------------------
[/tab]

These are both C7 chords. They are also very easy to play.

[Greg Moynihan]

Mr. Neer -- Those slants are so completely awesome, thank you sir!

[W. Johnson]

I use the Cma11 tuning. CEGBDF - Low to High. This tuning has a lot of slant options.

Here are a couple of videos I made showing the slants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eju9ZaBpOm8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAmm9LXOudM

Here's some pdf

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4pX2am ... 283LXRJZkE

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4pX2am ... 283LXRJZkE

I watched your videos, very informative and you explain it well. I also am looking at the PDF files. All good stuff. I will have to tune one of my guitars to this tuning and experiment with it.

[Michael James]

Thanks for looking into it. I hope you find what your looking for.

[Stanislav Paskalev]

I've been learning Cma11 for a couple of days on a 6-string and I'm having a blast with it. As the videos and pdfs linked in this thread seem to be gone I did my own charts. I also scored an 8 string on Ebay so I thought a bit how could I extend the Cma11 to 8 strings. Adding an A seemed like a natural choice to become fully diatonic and putting one between the G and B gives two instances of a major second, an interval that is tricky to use on 6-string Cma11 (e.g. must do a reverse slant over 4 frets for a sus2 chord). And adding one to the bottom in the alternating pattern of thirds extends the range and allows for a few more harmonic options without too much movement. The diagram bellow shows (low to high) A-C-E-G-A-B-D-F / (high to low) F-D-B-A-G-E-C-A.

There are some really neat things happening in music theory terms here. Each fret position corresponds to a particular diatonic key signature. Open is C/Am. Fifth is F/Dm. Seventh is G/Em. That follows for each. There's a full minor pentatonic scale across each fret too which should be practical for typical guitar stuff too.

Code: Select all

    ||-----------------------------------------------------------|
    || 1  | 2  | 3  | 4  | 5  | 6  | 7  | 8  | 9  | 10 | 11 | 12 |
    ||-----------------------------------------------------------|
 F  || F# | G  | G# | A  | A# | B  | C  | C# | D  | D# | E  | F  |
 D  || D# | E  | F  | F# | G  | G# | A  | A# | B  | C  | C# | D  |
 B  || C  | C# | D  | D# | E  | F  | F# | G  | G# | A  | A# | B  |
 A  || A# | B  | C  | C# | D  | D# | E  | F  | F# | G  | G# | A  |
 G  || G# | A  | A# | B  | C  | C# | D  | D# | E  | F  | F# | G  |
 E  || F  | F# | G  | G# | A  | A# | B  | C  | C# | D  | D# | E  |
 C  || C# | D  | D# | E  | F  | F# | G  | G# | A  | A# | B  | C  |
 A  || A# | B  | C  | C# | D  | D# | E  | F  | F# | G  | G# | A  |
    ||-----------------------------------------------------------|
    ||           *         *         *              *         *  |
    ||-----------------------------------------------------------|

I'm eager to get more into it and I plan on posting chord charts here about the 6 and 8 variants, although the 8 one really speaks for itself once laid out on the fretboard.

[Stanislav Paskalev]

This was supposed to go in the big Cma11 thread but I've misplaced it here. Can a moderator move it over please?

[Gregory LeBlanc]

A very common variation of the C6 tuning is C6/A7, achieved by tuning your low C to C# (C#,E,G,A,C,E). This gives you the dominate chords on the lower 4 strings.

I was using this tuning often, but Mike suggested (albeit not directly) that I learn to play diminished with a slant and have largely moved away from it. I have been finding that having the major chord on the bottom (and everything related to the 1/3/5 on the bottom three strings) is generally more useful and if you are willing to practice slants more are opened by the straight C6 tuning than C6/A7. However, should a tuning lean into A7 it's only a small twist of the knob away.

Regarding the dominate chord specifically, I haven't encountered too many places I feel the need to play enough of the full chord on lap steel to miss it. C6 is a fantastic tuning and I'm kinda feeling like if I had taken the time earlier to just memorize the fretboard and notes of each chord/scale sooner (still working on it), I would have been happy using partials that fit the moment in the song, rather than always looking for the full chord.

Anyways... just a bit of my recent experience. (Which hilariously has also just dropped me more into playing in high bass G with an interest of experimenting in a hybrid high to low of DBGEDG).