Applying Van Eps

[Bill McCloskey]

As I try and learn the Tom Morrell tuning, I dusted off my copy of George Van Eps Harmonic Mechanisms for Guitar to see if there was anything I could apply to learning the fretboard of Tom's tuning. I'm finding it extremely helpful. I'm sure Mike Near has played around with Van Eps, I wonder if others have?

[Mike Neer]

I did study the Van Eps method on the recommendation of Mike Stern (you can hear it in his playing), but I found that it's not really applicable to the steel guitar because it was designed with the intention of having you develop independence in your digits (Van Eps played chords and moving lines simultaneously with remarkable dexterity) and being that we have the equivalent of one finegr in the neck, it didn't make any sense in that respect. However, it's worth giving it a shot because it will increase your knowledge of triads up and down the neck.