Charlie McDonald's Idea

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 14 Dec 2005 1:56 pm

That's an interesting story about Hal Rugg. I would have enjoyed knowing him.

I'm not sure a 12 string is a good bed for 13th series. I definitely don't have enough pulls to do it, but I think this will be a pretty cool intermediate thing.
Now if I can just figure out what PZ is--just kidding, I've figured it out twice already.

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 14 Dec 2005 2:09 pm

Actually, I can't decide if I want PZ or PF.

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 14 Dec 2005 2:57 pm

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 14 Dec 2005 3:44 pm

Ok,

It's your topic.
You've seen the amended chart, including the further definition of pedals by the addition of an octave C# on P1. Thus the conceptual Day setup is revealed, as the E->A change is completed by L> as P2+P3 are rocked down.
And I used your bass notes, more or less.
Do I get to stay in the club?

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 14 Dec 2005 4:44 pm

Thus the conceptual Day setup is revealed, as the E->A change is completed by L> as P2+P3 are rocked down.

Actually, that would be "conceptual Emmons", as half of the "C" pedal is on P3 and the other half is on a knee lever. Jimmy Day had his "C" pedal on P1. You're not even close to that. Your P1 is an "A" pedal.

Emmons vs. Day refers to ABC vs. CBA. Knee levers weren't part of the equation when the giants split the pedals.

If you're gonna play steel, you gotta learn the lingo. boo-wah! boo-wah!

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<img align=left src="http://b0b.com/b0bxicon.gif" border="0"> Bobby Lee
-b0b- quasar@b0b.com 
System Administrator 
My Blog[This message was edited by b0b on 14 December 2005 at 04:45 PM.]

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 14 Dec 2005 4:49 pm

I still think that not having D and D# notes on the second string will push you into some wierd corners. Why do without a basic concept that's so easy to implement?

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 15 Dec 2005 1:17 am

Charlie, I guess I don’t understand what you are trying to do with your 12-string copedent. I don’t understand why you have changed the bottom strings from a standard extended E9 or uni. I also don’t see any lever or pedal changes on the low strings, which means you are missing a lot of stuff down there. Also, I see too much duplication in your copedent. I don’t understand how you will use pedals 0, 4 and 5.

A fundamental concept of E9 is to get I, IV and the relative minor at a single fret, and without moving your foot off the home pedals. II, V and other chords are only a couple frets away, and still without moving your foot. The extra scale notes on strings 1, 2 and 7, plus rocking your foot (still not moving it from the home pedals) give you the entire scale, major or minor, at a single fret. Other strings or levers give you the all important minor 7th, and perhaps other chromatic notes. These extra levers can be hit with your knees without looking (this is why extra knee levers were added to E9, but not more pedals). So you almost get the entire chromatic scale at a single fret, without moving your foot from the home pedals. This takes care of all Western music – country, pop, rock, folk, classical, and even a lot of blues and jazz. It is very difficult to move your foot around accurately on pedals without looking. You can manage okay for one pedal on each side of the home pedals, thus the C pedal and the 0 pedal. But being able to get so much at a single fret and with the home pedals accounts for the vast popularity of the E9 copedent for pedal steel. The brilliance of the uni is that it kept all of that, and added more, with the extra low strings and the whole B6 mode. You really don’t want to mess with the core of E9. Taking anything away from the strings and home pedals of standard E9 and adding them back on some distant pedals that cannot be hit accurately without looking, and that cannot work with the home pedals is a big, big mistake. For example, the main use of adding a G on a lever is to give the dominant 7th for the V chord with the A and B pedals down. You can’t get that with G on another pedal, because your foot is already holding down the home pedals. Likewise, the F# on string 7 gives the 6th with the home pedals down. Taking that string away and adding it on a pedal does not work. There are other examples in your copedent.

Although pedal steel E9 came from Bud Isaac’s lap E9 tuning, it evolved drastically to become the quintessential pedal steel copedent we have today. It is a long way from any useful lap steel tunings, and is designed to work with the home pedals plus 4 or 5 knee levers. It is very difficult to imagine any better pedal steel copedent for Western music. Ask b0b about his diatonic tuning. Sure it had lots of notes and was very piano-like or harp-like; but he discovered he lost all the great chordal possibilities and moving harmonies of E9.

The C6 tuning is a different concept. It was the most popular and useful lap steel tuning prior to Bud Isaac’s invention of the moving harmony pedal steel. You can play tons of stuff on it with no pedals. People still use it with no pedals for Hawaiian, country, pop and jazz. By simply changing grips at a single fret you can get I6, IV9 and the relative minor. Many, many other chords are available within a few frets, or with simple slants. The whole genre of Western swing was created with the C6 lap steel sound. You don’t really need to use pedals and levers to play Western swing on the C6 neck of a D10, or in B6 mode of a uni. The pedals and levers that were first added to C6 were for licks and flourishes – they are not at all essential to 6th neck playing the way they are for E9. Much later, Emmons added additional levers that helped him play bebop. However, I’m not convinced jazz is easier to get on C6 with lots of levers than on E9 or uni with lots of levers. If you approach jazz from a pentatonic blues tradition rather than from a Western swing tradition, E9, or even better the uni, has tons of possibilities, likewise the Sacred Steelers’ E7 copedent.

My copedent, which is a typical modern uni, may look complicated on paper. But to play, I think it is simpler than yours. First of all, it is a basic E9, with the lower strings repeating the upper string pattern, except for the F# on string 7. It is very much like an 8 string slide guitar tuned to E major would be. Next, the lower changes simply apply the same changes to the lower octave that are on the upper one, so there is nothing new or complicated there. Pedals 4-7 are for the B6 mode. The E9 mode still has only the A,B and C pedals, although I would like to add a 0 pedal. As for the levers, the E raise and lowers are standard, as is the 2nd string double lower. The lever for the D on the 8th string is necessary to make up for the missing D normally on string 9, and does double duty as pedal 6 of standard 6th neck. The vertical lever is really the only lever I have to play around with. The G I have there is a very common E9 lever, for getting a 7th with the A and B pedals down (the minor 7th is a key part of the pentatonic blues/jazz scale, but is also an essential part of all Western music). The C# on the E-lower lever replaces the useless D# with a note of the minor scale to go with that minor chord on E9, and also gives the equivalent of a D on top in B6 mode, which is a very common C6 setup. So really, my uni copedent is no more complicated than standard E9 and C6. Of course, when you consider the two copedents merged into one big one, there is immense complication. But that can be totally ignored while learning standard E9 and C6 stuff.

A couple of years ago when I started playing again, I explored copedents on paper like you are doing, to try to decide on what to get on a new pedal steel (I only had a Maverick then). I knew I wanted more low strings, so I got an extended E9. But then when I tried a uni, I gave up on the weird copedents on paper. The uni had all the typical E9 stuff, and all the typical C6 stuff, plus all the completely new stuff that comes from combining the two on a single neck. I quickly realized there is no way I would come up with something better on my own any time soon. Maybe someday I’ll consider a 14 string, but for now I have my hands full with 12. Anything I could want to play is in this copedent, country to blues, but also Chopin to avant garde jazz. Any real limitations are my own technical skills and imagination.
[This message was edited by David Doggett on 15 December 2005 at 01:27 AM.]

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 15 Dec 2005 4:15 am

Charlie, I guess I don’t understand what you are trying to do with your 12-string copedent.

I'm playing around. This is a good way to do it before I receive the guitar.

I don’t understand why you have changed the bottom strings from a standard extended E9 or uni.

They bear a resemblance to B0b's suggestion in the third post. Remember, this thread is a mental exercise to try and meet criteria raised within the thread.

Actually, that would be "conceptual Emmons"....

Ok, fine. I've got two A pedals and I'll see which one works best.

Likewise, the F# on string 7 gives the 6th with the home pedals down. Taking that string away and adding it on a pedal does not work.

The F# string is back in the equation. Bob left that out in his introduction to the topic. Consider me sufficiently rebuked.

I still think that not having D and D# notes on the second string will push you into some wierd corners.

I love wierd corners. But it's an artifact from the Ed's PST I was playing with. Mike Perlowin uses it. I'll change it back.

Taking anything away from the strings and home pedals of standard E9 and adding them back on some distant pedals that cannot be hit accurately without looking, and that cannot work with the home pedals is a big, big mistake.

A big mistake would be strapping a rocket on top of a Honda. Blowing up your neighbors cat. Destablising the political structure of the Middle East, thus encouraging tribal chiefs in Afghanistan to go back to growing poppies.

I really appreciate all the help, but come on guys, this is pedal steel guitar! It's the most fascinating instrument ever developed; it's hooked more guys than I can imagine, and I'm just one. Tuning a string, setting a raise, or moving a bellcrank is a process, and in the process is revealed things that work and things that don't work. In the end, you have music that meets your imagination or doesn't, and you continue the process.

Playing is NOT the ONLY way to get pleasure from the PSG (and not annoy the neighbors).

I can say no more. Except

boo-wah! boo-wah!

But I agree, Bobby; Lloyd Green's copedant is a truly elegant solution.
[This message was edited by Charlie McDonald on 15 December 2005 at 05:16 AM.]

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 15 Dec 2005 5:18 am

Fuggetaboutit.[This message was edited by Charlie McDonald on 15 December 2005 at 09:04 AM.]

ed packard · Post by **ed packard** » 15 Dec 2005 7:27 am

Charlie...can't let you go to sleep that easily! As DD essentially asked, what are you trying to do with your coped?

Do you want to be a Scale Runner?...Do you want to be a Lick Flipper?...would you perchance be a Chord Chaser? Your setup can be optimized for each of these approaches. It can also be a compromise to get some of each.

Do you like the idea of being forced to use lots of skip grips to get the basics, or to use them to get the exceptions (altered/added structures)? Are you going to be a three pick, or four pick player? Will you be satisfied with three or four strings at a time, or would you want the big sweeping chords? Do you want the traditional sounds (old country...Western Swing...etc), or do you hear something else in your mind? Do you expect to lean on TAB to learn things?

The answer to these questions will help to determine your setup.

On another aspect = the low strings: The "muddy bottom" syndrone can be solved easily in several ways; by pickup, and or by EQ.

Karlis A. addressed the problem via two six string pickups...it would be nice to hear how that worked out for him. I solve the problem with a single pickup with two windings (four leads). One winding is a "normal" one, and the second winding has 1/3 the turns of the normal one. These two windings can be used serial, parallel, in phase, or bucking. The bottom string can sound as Strat, Tele, Jazz, Cello as you want by selecting the appropriate hookup.

One of the reasons for the muddy bottom effect is that once the rack has been set for THE sound/tone, it is too much trouble to change it, and it is difficult to change on the fly so the sound is optimized for the upper strings and octaves at the expense of the lows. Enter the virtual rack. Many different and instantly alterable tonal structures may be created, stored, and accessed on the fly if the computer is located like a music stand in front of the PSG. Bye Bye Muddy Bottoms, and hello to a whole new area of PSG sounds.

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 15 Dec 2005 8:11 am

huhnn? oh, sorry, I was asleep, having a dream of being alone on a desert island. A big box floats ashore; inside are a psg and a solar powered amp. What a beautiful dream.... back to work.

1. Chord chaser (I should think that would be obvious by the amended chart, but I was trying to effect a compromise, to satisfy the criteria raised)(I know better now to attempt that feat)
2. Thumb and three fingers, sometimes four
3. I hear something else in my mind
4. Can't stand tablature
5. Music stand? what for?
6. Bottom strings: a bass guitar. I like to overdub.

So smoke on your pipe and put that in.
Simply can't wait to see what responses this gets. Really. zzzzzzzzzzz....

Seriously, I like the PST system. I just got this MSA to play around with while waiting to see your Sierra 5x5 in Dallas.
It's got enough pedals to try out PX and PY.

David L. Donald · Post by **David L. Donald** » 15 Dec 2005 8:49 am

Charlie... I feel you pain!

Thinking copedent theory BEFORE you get the steel in hand.
Dang it's a mind bender fo sho!

No we won't "chuck" you either.
On your colored copedent chart above,

I would have exchanged pedal 4; G#-G
for LKR; E-F#
And dropped the F# to F with the G#'s to G

Just a thought.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 15 Dec 2005 9:37 am

Charlie, I don't mean to discourage you or anyone else from experimenting - that's part of the fun and challenge of the instrument. I'm just thowing in some cautions against reinventing the wheel by trying to highlight the guiding principles the greats came up with in inventing the standard copedents we have.

Ed, how can I get a multiwind, multitap pickup like that? With the usual pickup, if my high strings are mellow, my low strings are muddy; or if my low strings are clear and edgy, my high strings are shrill. I cain't git no satisfaction.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 15 Dec 2005 9:38 am

b0b, how did you fix the spacing in my chart? My original didn't cause horizontal scrolling on my screen, but your spacing looks better than the original.

ed packard · Post by **ed packard** » 15 Dec 2005 10:01 am

DD....the pickup was made by DiMarzio for the BEAST. Joe Wright also uses one (last I heard).

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 15 Dec 2005 10:40 am

Ed Packard wrote:

The "muddy bottom" syndrone can be solved easily in several ways; by pickup, and or by EQ.

Standard musical arranging uses wider intervals in the lower registers, even when each note is played on a different instrument. The reason is based (pun accidental) in the way humans perceive and respond to low frequencies. This is not something that changing pickups or EQ will fix, unless you actually remove the fundamental and only amplify the harmonics.

b0b, how did you fix the spacing in my chart? My original didn't cause horizontal scrolling on my screen, but your spacing looks better than the original.

I replaced your tab characters with spaces. Don't use the tab key to line things up when you make a chart. Use the space bar instead. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> <blockquote> quote: 
I still think that not having D and D# notes on the second string will push you into some wierd corners.</blockquote> I love wierd corners. But it's an artifact from the Ed's PST I was playing with. Mike Perlowin uses it. I'll change it back. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Actually, Mike does have the D and D# notes, and I think Ed does too. By "wierd corners", I mean ones that you paint yourself into. If those notes aren't available to you, you will have to do some very awkward things to complete a melody. You lose many elegant-sounding phrasings.

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b2005.gif" width="78 height="78">Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Williams D-12 E9, C6add9, Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop S-8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, C6 or A6) My Blog [This message was edited by b0b on 15 December 2005 at 10:48 AM.]

ed packard · Post by **ed packard** » 15 Dec 2005 12:26 pm

Bob...It appears that your comment is re the lower notes being used as adjacent odd intervals in a chordal structure...if so "skip grip" just like you do on the upper strings to avoid the problem; other than that, there is arpeggiation. The "turns ratio" pickup phasing method can be used to reduce the amount of fundamental if that is desired.[This message was edited by ed packard on 15 December 2005 at 12:46 PM.]

Larry Bell · Post by **Larry Bell** » 15 Dec 2005 12:54 pm

HOLD IT
T I M E O U T

Many of us (me included) have wished upon Charlie our own prejudices. Most of us play E9 and/or C6 and are very interested in being able to play the traditional arrangements, licks and solos we hear played on those tunings.

Charlie may be new to pedal steel, but he is certainly NOT new to MUSIC. He knows what he wants to play and it ain't 'A Way to Survive' and it ain't western swing or hillbilly jazz. Those styles are just not what he's interested in. If you remove those styles from most Forum members' repertoires there would be little left. Maybe it's time for us to learn (from Charlie and others) that there is actually a wide world of music out there that the pedal steel, lap steel, reso, and Wiessenborn can contribute to.

If you listened to his recent posting of a tune he recorded, it's clear that his tastes run much more along the lines of music that Susan Alcorn or even Daniel Lanois have created. That represents a direction that very few of us have really investigated.

I believe that it is in everyone's best interest to bear this in mind and cut Charlie a little slack here. He is interested in our opinions -- but we must recognize they are OUR opinions and, as such, reflect our musical tastes and prejudices. He is NOT crazy just because the music he hears is less structured that the music most of us play.

I, for one, am very interested in seeing what Charlie comes up with. He is a very creative fellow and before too long may be able to teach us a thing or two.

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S/D-12 6x6, 1984 Sho-Bud S/D-12 7x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

Richard Sinkler · Post by **Richard Sinkler** » 15 Dec 2005 2:09 pm

Good post Larry. But, since Charlie never said what style or direction of music he was going to play, the rest of us who do not know him would just assume he was going to play country. Also, by posting here, he asked for help and opinions. Nobody is chastizing him. We are just trying to help him out. I wish Charlie the best of luck in his venture to find HIS perfect tuning. Most of us have been through that.

And Charlie, someone made the comment about not having or moving changes to distant pedals because you would have to look at the pedals to play them. That's nonsense. With practice, you can play a whole rack of pedals without ever having to look down at them. On my D10, I have 5 pedals that actuate my E9th neck, and 5 that actuate my C6th neck and I never have to look down at my pedals. Your eyes should only be focused on your bar hand. It just comes with practice. Again, good luck and keep us informed on your quest.

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Carter D10 9p/9k, NV400, Korg Triton Le88 Synth, Korg CX-3 organ, Yamaha Motif Rack Module, Regal Dobro, Tele, Gretsch Acoustic.

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 15 Dec 2005 3:13 pm

I, for one, am very interested in seeing what Charlie comes up with.

Larry, I will too. I never know what it's going to be from one minute to the next.

This is an open forum and all suggestions are welcomed. I put this in the passive tense because it is not my topic, but rather one that I initiated indirectly and b0b picked up on it. Taking it as a mental exercise, I tried to follow the thread and accommodate the various suggestions. I got lost. I went back and retraced my steps and found the original solution again, and am trying to reevaluate it in light of suggestions.

Remaining artifacts were out of context and confused several, as they come from Ed P.'s 13 series, which I'm leaning toward once again, as the MSA was bought as a test bed for the concept. Who nows how it will change? Who knows what I'll play with it?
Maybe something like this.
http://www.freefilehosting.net/?id=qtj8lK3R
My impression of Monk and Mingus Go Walkin'.

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 16 Dec 2005 1:06 am

Richard, I made the comment about not having to look at the pedals to play E9. With enough will power and practice time, you can learn to hit distant pedals without looking. Plenty of people dance across the pedals to play C6. My point was not that no one could do that, but that not having to do that was part of the enormous popularity and genius of E9, and I don't think that is nonsense. I'm just playing the devil's advocate to help keep Charlie's quest real. If you have five E9 pedals that you can hit without looking, that is extremely rare and exceptional. The vast majority of E9ers have 3 pedals. A few now have added the Franklin pedal to have four, and it is typically right next to the A pedal. Except for very rare exceptions like yourself, a very central part of the way E9 is played is with your foot wed to the A and B pedals. Taking something essential off of a convenient string or knee lever and putting it on a distant pedal really destroys the core strategy of the E9 that has led to its great popularity. Look how many people play single E9s with 3 & 4, or have D10s and never touch the C neck and all those pedals. Why is that?

Sure you can add a lot of pedals to E9 and learn to use them. On the other hand, lots of people play steels with no pedals - imagine that. The classic E9 found a happy medium - two main pedals that you keep your foot on. That struck a chord, so to speak, and became enormously popular, almost to the excusion of anything else. Even the very top pros, who can dance across the pedals on C6, play that classic E9 style with their foot mashing and rocking the A and B pedals 99% of the time. It's a beautiful strategy that makes E9 what it is. Randomly rearranging core parts of it without a better strategy might be as likely to improve it as the proverbial roomful of monkeys with typewriters is likely to eventually write a Shapespeare play.

I'm just playing devil's advocate here and trying to keep it real. I'm no conformist - I play one of those crazy unis. But it's got the core of E9 and C6 in it. I think everyone should get a couple of extra pedals and/or levers to experiment with on their first professional pedal steel. But how smart is it for a beginner to start wholesale moving around strings and pedals and levers? To put this in terms Charlie can understand from his past experience with the piano, how smart would it be for a beginner to change the pattern of white and black keys on his first piano? Or change the order of the chromatic scale? Even if you want to play whole tone music like Debussey and Ravel, would it be wise to change the key pattern to do that? Sure, it's a free country and you can spend your time doing that if you want to. But it will take a lot of work, and will lead where?

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 16 Dec 2005 4:13 am

Ok, let's be real. There is no beginner or master of piano who can change the setup of the keys. Do you know of anyone who can cut a set of keys, let alone cast a plate to accommodate a new arrangement of them?
This is sheer hyperbole, and no one can even imagine such a thing, even if taken as a humorous suggestion.

The PSG is designed to accommodate changes.
I'm not trying to change it for anyone else, nor do I advocate changing the core of E9. I am proposing something for my own experimentation on an MSA S12 7x4.

I'm not interested in C6 or B6. I don't use 6th chords intentionally--yes, yes, I know, the 6th is an important melody note, so let's don't get off on a tangent about leaving out the Bb's on a piano and stuff like that--and I don't particularly like dom. 7ths. I like an M7 with my 9ths, and love 11ths and 13ths. So I am atracted to PST13.
I envision it as a uni of sorts. Let's take a look at it. http://b0b.com/tunings/edpack.htm
Its major features are PX and PY; when used with a lever changing str. 2 & 8 to D, a broad range of 13ths is exposed. (Yes, I left it off my chart; like I say, I got lost in the conversation. Note: pedals X and Y on the chart do not reflect PST.) That is a simplistic summary.

In order to accommodate it on a 4x5, there is a compromise. To regain the E->F# change, I propose a lever (L>) to add it back in independent of the B->C# raise. At the moment it's just a concept .
[What to do for an F raise, Bobby's favorite lever? I don't know. The MSA seller says that's on RKR. IF so, I'll leave it there and see how I like it. I'm not very concerned at the moment. Bobby also doesn't like vocals with his music, so there ya go.]
I'd also like an independent pedal O to lower G# to F#, to suspend ii and resolve it. It also makes an easy V chord with L<. It's something I can hear. It's to be used in the pedals up position. Thus pedal B is only shifted one to the right, and that seems to work better for my short legs. Will it work with PX and still enable the F#? Will pedal 0 be useful? I don't know. There is no better way than to do it than on a real guitar. Doing so will answer a lot of questions I've asked, like whether 12 or 14 strings; what the most invaluable levers are; and whether I want to go with PST (given that I'll be lacking a lever to fully try it out).

What's the alternative? A standard setup?
It's been revealed that there isn't one. There are as many copeds as there are devil's advocates on this forum. Everyone finds his own by experimentation. That setup determines the kinds of chords you can get, the kinds of melodies you play.
Standardization leads to standardized music. I'm not interested in that. Did you listen to my sound file? What pedals and levers am I using? I can't even tell you that, but it's a Carter Starter stock setup.

I appreciate all the help. Bear in mind that mistakes aren't a bad thing. In music, they determine a different direction; and I would argue that they're not even mistakes, but are the interplay of the subconscious with the conscious.
On PSG, they can be corrected. It's all part of the fun that I envision with the coolest of all instruments.

As I said, maybe I'm out to put the fun back in dysfunctional. But please, don't confuse my curiosity with heresy. And if I ever end up with a 'standard' coped, please feel free to say 'I told you so.' But it'll make you--whoever you are--look silly, not me.

Now, where's David Donald to clarify that really interesting suggestion for an F# raise... might be the answer to my problems, both personal and scientific....[This message was edited by Charlie McDonald on 16 December 2005 at 05:30 AM.]

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 16 Dec 2005 7:07 am

Aw I’m just giving you a hard time Charlie. Go ahead and try out your experiments. It's a lot of fun. I presume you are posting your thinking here to get feed back. That’s all we’re doing. Now that I see Ed's PST 13, I'm not so worried. You’re in good hands there, and it is very much like my 12-string uni. I do agree with b0b that D# will be sorely missed on string 2. The C# you're putting there duplicates the C# you get with P1. I tried a D on string 2 with the same lever that gives me a D on string 8. I just ran across too many situations where I wanted one of those Ds and not the other. Usually, when you want a D for the 7th on top, you want the root to remain on string 8.

I’ve never really looked closely at Ed’s 13-series concept. What’s the brief explanation of the concept? Does PX have to be used with P2? Would it work if you kept the usual C pedal at P3, and put PX at P4? The BC pedal combination is very useful as ii, and gives the relative minor if you are at the AB pedal-down fret. I like the BC combination so much that have pedal C pull string 8 to F# to add to the moving harmony, and to eliminate having to block string 7 when moving to the next chord.

As for the low strings, my advice would be to keep the B on string 12, as a standard uni. Get the C# on that string on P1. I couldn’t live without that C# root for the minor chord with P1. That is THE minor key/chord home position for me, and I live there these days almost as much as I live at the I and V chord open and AB-pedal positions. Get the low A on string 12 by having P2 take it down from a B to an A. Don’t worry too much about things being too muddy down there. You don’t need to play adjacent strings down low, just use skip grips and power chords. With Bill Stafford’s 14-string jazz style, he is frequently just dropping his thumb down there and hitting a single low string, with something else going on up higher with his fingers. It’s a wonderful effect when playing solo like he does.

You may find that you don’t need the Gs on PY, unless that is an essential part of the 13-series. For simply changing the open E chord to a minor, you may not find that so useful. Most minor changes go to the relative minor or ii. The Im change is rare. And you can get that two other places. The F lever toggles the A-pedal/F-lever position between the major and minor; and the lever giving you a D on string 8 toggles the E-lower lever B6 chord to Bm6. And of course that E-lower lever B6 position is also G# minor. So there are lots of more useful ways to get minors than lowering the 3rd of the E chord. If you just want some way to get a G, then put a half-stop feel on LKV.

And be sure to have the F lever raise string 11 to F. That is useful for low diminished and augmenteds.

One of the main problems I have visualizing things on paper is that the paper chart only shows what is happening at the open pedal position. It is hard to visualize what is happening at the AB-pedal position, the AF position, the B6 position, or any of the minor positions. It can be helpful to draw a chart of each of those positions. It also helps me to transpose the open position and all those other positions into the C chord/key.

Well, that’s all my advice for now. Have fun.
[This message was edited by David Doggett on 16 December 2005 at 07:13 AM.]

David Doggett · Post by **David Doggett** » 16 Dec 2005 7:40 am

One more thought. Just because you don't care for 6th chords, don't sell the B6 side of a uni short. Buddy Emmons did a lot of fantastic stuff on his black album without ever hitting a 6th. On a uni (and Ed's PST 13), in B6 mode, when you hit the B pedal it's B7. If you study Emmons' C6 copedent you will see a lot of stuff you will like. His right knee levers change his top C string a half step in both directions, and do it in the intuitive way you want. His left knee does the same for the A string below the C. With that arrangement, he has all the chromatic melody notes you could want at the top of his main open position chord. That is a wonderful arrangement I envy; but I haven't figured out a way to do it on a uni without growing more knees. Nevertheless, the B6 mode adds tons of great chords to the E9 of a uni, especially down low.

Charlie McDonald · Post by **Charlie McDonald** » 16 Dec 2005 7:49 am

Now stop that! You'll get me in trouble accusing me of selling B6 short. One can't have everything unless you want 10 pedals.
I'm asking how to get a taxi and you're telling me about internal combustion. I can't even work E9 yet. Sheesh....

I’ve never really looked closely at Ed’s 13-series concept.

Then look at it. Do a search; the complete set of tables except for B6 is under a topic about '12 or 14 string.' http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum5/HTML/011355.html
A look at these pages might answer your implied question about a G lever or pedal for its own sake. I'm not approaching this that way.
Oh, and just one more thing:

One of the main problems I have visualizing things on paper is that the paper chart only shows what is happening at the open pedal position.

I'm sorry. I have no difficulty with that, due to background in architecture and piano.
I find endless descriptions of pedal functions without a graphic depiction to be wordy. There are many things more to life than a quantitative understanding of things.
I find intuitive and spatial references to be beyond the grasp of most forumites--at least those who post. Thus I find I've assumed I've communicated something when in reality I appear to be completely in the dark. Such is life.
But your doggett {oh! I'm sorry!) pursuit of being assistance to me is greatly appreciated.

[This message was edited by Charlie McDonald on 16 December 2005 at 08:17 AM.]