posted 30 October 2000 01:13 PM         

I think as a new student of the tuning, I'm finding out just why you wouldn't want to learn it. I despartly wanted to learn C6th, and jumped in there with both feet during my first year of playing. I found that just as Jack had said, the basics are pretty easy and you get some great sounds that are difficult if not completely out of range of E9th. I also found a fair amount of excuses to play C6th, even in my bar bands. And I was amazed at how great it sounded when I followed some tab or other learning materials.

But after the basics, I hit a wall....hard! The styles associated with the "C6th Sound" are either Jazz or, for the lack of a better word, "Swing" type chords, (a lot of 6, 2, 5, and 4m stuff.) The easy "Swing" style lends itself great to C6th with just bar movement and the simplest of pedals. What I found out for me is the Next Step is a huge one.

I had come to understand basic chord theory pretty well on E9th, but the more advanced stuff was a little beyond my knowledge. I could hit the passing chords, but saw them as "licks", not a musical theory of when to play them. I had my scales down and could play anything single note I wanted on E9th, but C6th was difficult beyond the basics. I then had to come to terms with the fact that after playing guitar for 40 years, I didn't know dink about practical music theory. I had to go into serious learning mode and back up a LOT of steps to move on from there.

As b0b noted, lap steel was based on a lot of 6th tunings. I thought it would be great to learn lap steel and bar slants, and maybe then C6th would make sense. I started reading everything about chord theory I could find. And this worked, to a point. My E9th got a LOT better because I knew that tuning well enough to apply the chord theory. I was feeling my oats being able to play most anything I set my mind and practice time to on E9th, but still it just didn't click on C6th.

Finally, I went all the way back to the beginning. I bought Jerry Byrd's course and instead of just plowing through it, I set out to really understand everything that was being said. I started in a simple straight E tuning, (learned a little Dobro on the way by), and have been working through all of the various tunings, not only learning how to play them, but WHY they work. Finally it's starting to come together. I'm still not much of C6th player, but have landed a great little gig playing lap steel to swing era songs all night a couple of nights a week. My bar slants are now coming along nicely because I've had to use them. And now C6th does seem as easy and to make sense like E9th. But that step was painful and took a lot more work that I had ever expected. I had to face my own limitations as a musician and accept them in order to work on them.

posted 30 October 2000 03:41 PM         

Learning E9 was a side effect of playing steel with a C6 bent, and along with it came with an appreciation of some different styles of music I wouldn't have given a second thought to only a few years before. I'm still not a very good E9 player. Even though I really dig it, I hear some of these E9 licks with all these twists and turns, and think to myself "How could anybody even think up stuff like that?" I guess I'm just not wired that way.

posted 30 October 2000 05:22 PM         

I read all the posts with rapt interest but no personal involvement until I got to Jack Stoners post, and then it hit me.
It's all those PEDALS!!!
THAT'S why I don't play (and never will) the C6th.

I started with a D-10 but only used the E9 neck. I had quite a bit of experience on rhythm guitar and a certain unnamed 5-stringed instrument (plucked rapidly in a syncopated fashion to accompany up-tempo 2/4 types of cabin and/or train songs). I still need to kind of keep an eye on bar placement. Because of the need to anchor the heel to allow visually unaided pedal action, I find it hard to understand how anyone can be moving BOTH the right and left foot back and forth and up and down without losing his place.
In fact, the previous point also begs the question of speed limitation; if you have to move 2 or 3 pedals to the left or right, you're limited in the use of that musical figure by the time it takes to execute the action (if you hit what you're after).

I can see myself having conquered some of these challenges had I started when I was 15, but not now. The most I can relate to is adding a couple of bass strings and possibly a pedal to the left of the A pedal (no clue what to use it for though).

sidenote
I never really went to see other players and was too intimidated to even ask to play at Charlie's TSGA meetings (sh!t man, Junior and Gary and Maurice??? NO THANKS), so I just quit going. Therefore, I don't play like any of the players I hear on recordings (no comment from you, Feldman ).

posted 30 October 2000 06:03 PM         

When I was gigging, I made it a point to play the C6th at least 1/4 of the gig. It may not have been great but it made me aware of what could be done on that neck. I had knee levers to raise my A's to Bb and to raise my top C only to D. These along with the 6th pedal gave me a lot of the E-9th sounds down on my C neck. Heck, I learned Bud's Bounce on the C neck and had NEVER played it on E-9th until a couple of months ago at one of my steel jams.

I think anyone with a goal of learning both necks should do so at the same time. There are things I have learned on one neck that helped understand things on the other neck. If you think you have to "master" one neck before learning the other, you are just kidding yourself. Heck, double your practice time and spend half on each neck. That way you don't feel you are slacking on one neck to learn the other.

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Carter D10 8p/10k
Richard Sinkler BS, www.sinkler.com

posted 31 October 2000 09:14 PM         

Now this could be the opening of the greatest debate we've seen in a while.
I'll maybe go along with the (nearly) comment, depending on how near you mean. But, the (some even better)?

posted 31 October 2000 09:31 PM         

quote:

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The top C6th players in the world all play E9 every bit as well (nearly) as Lloyd Green.(some even better!)

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