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Topic: Why E9 |
Jeffrey McFadden
From:
Missouri, USA
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Posted 5 Feb 2018 11:48 am |
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This is one of those unanswerable questions, but I'd still like to hear your thoughts on it.
What about E9 tuning made it the "standard" most widely accepted tuning for PSG?
I moved from 6 string to lap steel at about age 65 or 66, accepted the lap steel standard of C6, and now, at 70, am halfway competent with that fretboard & note positions. I am leaning towards building on that hard-won knowledge as I go to PSG, but I would like to better understand the other option.
Thanks.
_________________
Well up into mediocrity
I don't play what I'm supposed to.
Home made guitars |
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 5 Feb 2018 1:32 pm
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| My theory is that it just worked well for country music. First, it's based on a major chord and has a nicely grouped triads. And second, the "E" open chord puts the "G" through "D" keys (that most country songs are written in) in a convenient position. |
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Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
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Posted 5 Feb 2018 1:38 pm
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If are comfortable playing the C6th tuning, that tuning is also used on a pedal steel, just stick with it. 
Erv |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 5 Feb 2018 2:51 pm
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Donny explains E9, Erv invites you to ignore it.
He has a point - once you unleash pedal power on the C6 I doubt if you'll have time to even think about E9 
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
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Posted 5 Feb 2018 2:53 pm
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| Jeffrey already has a leg up being acquainted with C6th. |
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Michael Hill
From:
Arizona, USA
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Posted 5 Feb 2018 3:00 pm
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An open tuning makes sense for any instrument played with a bar.
The 9 part was always odd to me. Ok, you can play an E9 chord using just open strings but you can also play an E major 9 with string 2. So it's as much major 9 as it is dominant 9.
Furthermore, when you have AB down, whoosh, the 9 chord disappears and you've suddenly got a major 6 chord.
As a beginner E9 seems way more accessible than C6. |
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Larry Baker
From:
Columbia, Mo. U.S.A.
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Posted 5 Feb 2018 3:28 pm
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Jeffrey, where in Missouri are you located? Larry
_________________
Mullen G2 SD10 3 & 5 The Eagle
NV112 amp===Earnie Ball V.P. |
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Bob Watson
From:
Champaign, Illinois, U.S.
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 5 Feb 2018 11:15 pm
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The history of how E9 developed is pretty clear and well documented. I don’t know how much that has to do with the “why E9?†question.
I think it is a guitar player thing. E is home plate on a guitar on standard tuning. Carrying that over to 6-string slide guitar with an open E tuning is naturally intuitive. 8-string E7 or E6/13 lap steel is next and still in the comfort zone, and finally to E9 with a couple more strings tuned so as to make diatonic scale runs possible without bar movement.
At any rate, the fret markers on the E9 neck mean the same thing at pedals up positions as they do on a guitar in standard (or open E) tuning. Pedals down = A6. Engage E lever = B6. And there’s your 1-4-5 at any fret. It’s a beautiful thing  |
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Paul Sutherland
From:
Placerville, California
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 1:01 am
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The pedal and lever movements that are available on the E9 are very pleasing to the common ear. Those raises and lowers fit more styles of accessible music than what you get with C6th. You don't have to have a well developed ear for challenging melodies, harmonies and chord structures. It's music for the masses. It's the commercial tuning. It's how you make money.
With the E9 tuning most, but not all, pedal pulls are from one major scale tone to another. So that keeps everything very familiar sounding. Plus the A & B pedals, giving you new inversions half way up the neck, is an added bonus. It just lays out well.
I know this is probably over-generalizing the issue, but it makes sense to me.
_________________
It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. |
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Tony Prior
From:
Charlotte NC
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 2:23 am
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nice replys above..
Consider this, on a piano or guitar, we have the ability to use our fingers to pretty much play any chord shape we want in any song. The problem is many chord shapes DON'T fit the style of the music.
We don't play Haggard or Jones cover tunes using 6th or Maj 7 chords as the root, even though we can. It may be musically correct but it's "listening wrong" .
We can cut wood with any saw, but we don't use a coarse blade for finish cuts. we can, nobody is stopping us, but we probably will not like the results.
The Steels are obviously dedicated tuning's and we play or select a tuning which allows us to use a minimum amount of energy , effort, to "join " the music .
OF course we can play the same music on any Steel tuning, but they are all not laid out the same to give us the same options in simplicity and they are not supposed to.
We can play an open G tuning on a Dobro, GBDGBD play any song, but we will also give the band leader a real nasty look if he says Bb, Ab or Eb ! It's all relative.
Sure on the C6th we can grab the Root, the IV and the V right in front of us, but they are more aiming at the 9th modes in tonality. If this is a basic C, F and G Cowboy song, sure we can grab those grips but it's not quite the same as grabbing those same chords which are just literally screaming at you on the E9th. "Play me, play me".
We play within the tuning, one offers a more conducive approach to the style of music we are seeking, the other one requires a bit more work . Neither are wrong, but both can be within a piece of music. 
Some will argue that they can get the same tonality from both tunings, and they are probably correct, for them. But they were not intended to be the same exact tonality's. I think thats the point. Otherwise there would be only ONE tuning developed by the masters.
_________________
Emmons L-II , Fender Telecasters, B-Benders
Pro Tools 12 on WIN 7 !
jobless- but not homeless- now retired 9 years
CURRENT MUSIC TRACKS AT > https://tprior2241.wixsite.com/website |
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Ian Rae
From:
Redditch, England
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 4:47 am
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In the context of style and feel, the basic changes on E9 (A & B pedals) raise the strings diatonically, but on the C6 (P5 & 6) they lower them to notes which are outside the scale. The C6 doesn't as Tony says "scream at you" but is much more subtle.
_________________
Make sleeping dogs tell the truth!
Homebuilt keyless U12 7x5, Excel keyless U12 8x8, Williams keyless U12 7x8, Telonics rack and 15" cabs |
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Jeffrey McFadden
From:
Missouri, USA
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 5:48 am
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| Larry Baker wrote: |
| Jeffrey, where in Missouri are you located? Larry |
Not that far from Kansas City, NE of town. Richmond area.
_________________
Well up into mediocrity
I don't play what I'm supposed to.
Home made guitars |
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Jeffrey McFadden
From:
Missouri, USA
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 5:57 am
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All very interesting. Thanks to all.
My "C6" is really an "Am7", 7 strings, low A added. For chord / rhythm work on majors I dodge the 6ths, use grabs built up of 1-3-5 notes, get different inversions from choosing among the two different available 1s and 3s plus my one and only 5 note. I went to C6 for the available minor chords, as did probably so many other players.
I do a lot of melody work - I grew up playing a wind instrument so single note melody lines are natural to me. I find the 1-3-5-6-1 line supports a huge number of common melody lines.
We play mostly old rock'n'roll (Stones, Beach Boys, Eagles, Beatles, 50s-60s) plus a lot of Merle and other structurally & harmonically simple country. At least at the beginning I hope to use pedals to reduce how much I have to wave the bar around the neck to get 1-2-6m-4-5 progressions. I do use a lot of 2 string grabs for harmonizing runs, slant bar 7ths and so forth that I hope to expand and simplify with pedals.
I appreciate all the thoughtful replies.
_________________
Well up into mediocrity
I don't play what I'm supposed to.
Home made guitars |
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Jack Stoner
From:
Kansas City, MO
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 6:09 am
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I started out on lap steel, trying to copy Little Roy Wiggins. But the pedal steel (E9th and C6th) seems much easier and better than a non pedal. It may not sound like it would be, but it is.
BTW, I have relatives in Richmond and in the 80's played for Byron Jones at the Farris Opry.
_________________
GFI Ultra Keyless S-10 with pad (Black of course) TB202 amp, Hilton VP, Steelers Choice sidekick seat, SIT Strings
Cakewalk by Bandlab and Studio One V4.6 pro DAWs, MOTU Ultralite MK5 recording interface unit |
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ajm
From:
Los Angeles
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 8:06 am
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I thought about creating a separate topic/thread, but this one kind of relates.
There have been discussions about playing swing and 6th styles using the E9 neck.
Flipping it around............
Anybody got an example of straight country non-swing non-jazz that was played on the C6 neck? |
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Jeffrey McFadden
From:
Missouri, USA
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 8:12 am
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| Jack Stoner wrote: |
I started out on lap steel, trying to copy Little Roy Wiggins. But the pedal steel (E9th and C6th) seems much easier and better than a non pedal. It may not sound like it would be, but it is.
BTW, I have relatives in Richmond and in the 80's played for Byron Jones at the Farris Opry. |
I'd have been here when you were playing here, but wasn't going to his Opry. I live about 3 miles from Byron's old place.
_________________
Well up into mediocrity
I don't play what I'm supposed to.
Home made guitars |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 8:33 am
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| ajm wrote: |
I thought about creating a separate topic/thread, but this one kind of relates.
Anybody got an example of straight country non-swing non-jazz that was played on the C6 neck? |
Doesn’t get much Straiter than this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qtKCbP6LEew
I’m pretty sure there is a thread here on the topic of the cool recurring lick on this song. Paul Franklin cleared some things up when he commented that he did it on his C6 neck. |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 9:13 am
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| Jeffrey McFadden wrote: |
My "C6" is really an "Am7", 7 strings, low A added.
I do a lot of melody work - I grew up playing a wind instrument so single note melody lines are natural to me. I find the 1-3-5-6-1 line supports a huge number of common melody lines.
I do use a lot of 2 string grabs for harmonizing runs, slant bar 7ths and so forth that I hope to expand and simplify with pedals.
I appreciate all the thoughtful replies. |
Other than certain swingy chromatics, C6 lap steel almost forces the player to stay within melodic lines, because the options for spontaneous improvisation are limited and depend on a lot of fast and accurate bar movement. And there is the intonation issue when doing slants, which can further be complicated by longer scale necks and narrow string spacing.
The addition of diatonic strings (F# and D#) on E9 pedal steel indeed simplifies single note melodic playing and opens up the neck for improvisation, often with very little use of pedals and levers. The intonation issues are relatively minor in comparison to lap steel slanting because 99% of the time you are dealing with tiny adjustments of the straight bar when playing dyads and chords. |
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Bob Hoffnar
From:
Austin, Tx
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 10:57 am
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Get a D10 and play the C6 you are comfortable with and play the E9 neck when you want that particular sound. The E9 will be fun and natural and suit the music for you or it won't and then you have that C6 neck with all those pedals to make it easy.
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Bob |
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Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 10:59 am
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Bob,
Yes, the best of both worlds!
Erv |
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Jeffrey McFadden
From:
Missouri, USA
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 11:12 am
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| Bob Hoffnar wrote: |
| Get a D10 and play the C6 you are comfortable with and play the E9 neck when you want that particular sound. The E9 will be fun and natural and suit the music for you or it won't and then you have that C6 neck with all those pedals to make it easy. |
Alas, I'd have to get a sugar momma first, and my wife would probably object.
Way out of my financial reach.
_________________
Well up into mediocrity
I don't play what I'm supposed to.
Home made guitars |
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Jeffrey McFadden
From:
Missouri, USA
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 8:19 pm
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| Ian Rae wrote: |
Donny explains E9, Erv invites you to ignore it.
He has a point - once you unleash pedal power on the C6 I doubt if you'll have time to even think about E9 |
I'm betting you're right.
_________________
Well up into mediocrity
I don't play what I'm supposed to.
Home made guitars |
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Jeffrey McFadden
From:
Missouri, USA
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 9:07 pm Music theory, sorta
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| Fred Treece wrote: |
Other than certain swingy chromatics, C6 lap steel almost forces the player to stay within melodic lines, because the options for spontaneous improvisation are limited and depend on a lot of fast and accurate bar movement. And there is the intonation issue when doing slants... |
This comment is very interesting and caused me to think a little different this evening during practice than I usually do.
I improvise almost all my melody lines, playing the original melody and interspersing it with notes or diads that I think enhance it. I rarely try to slant a triad, and it rarely goes well.
 disclaimer: I can't do this nearly as well as that description sounds like.
Anyway - from wherever my bar is I have a chromatic scale within 2 frets one way or the other, usually both. 5 frets wide with root fret in the middle. I mean, chromatic from G to G, or from A to A - the notes are distributed differently but I've always got all 12 available. Which means that whichever way my bar is moving, I can usually find the next note I need without needlessly reversing direction. I don't have a clue if I'm making sense.
I would think they'd all be available similarly conveniently on an E9 except I'd have to learn them again. I spend a lot of time just running scales, majors, minors, stuff -
That's why I want pedals. I know for sure I can get 1, 4, 5, 6m, and 2 chords from root fret with a couple different copedents. I've already got a chromatic scale within easy reach. The place where I feel limited by long, fast bar movements is not in melody work but in chord / rhythm work. I play with an improviser who'll change chords every other beat sometimes and I'm waving that bar around like a wild man while I get his progression figured out. Then I cheat and just pick up notes from where I am to save wear and tear on the elbow.
| Tony Prior wrote: |
| ...Sure on the C6th we can grab the Root, the IV and the V right in front of us, but they are more aiming at the 9th modes in tonality. |
I hate to sound as stupid as I feel here... what do you mean by "aiming at 9th modes..." Which "they"? On the C6? The E9? I'm lost.
_________________
Well up into mediocrity
I don't play what I'm supposed to.
Home made guitars |
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Fred Treece
From:
California, USA
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Posted 6 Feb 2018 11:28 pm
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| Yes you are making sense. You will not be lost or disappointed on S10 E9. The possibilities are galactic. And when you do on occasion sit back down at your lap steel, you will smile at its noble, innocent purity. |
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