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Steel players do it without fretting

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Steering wheel on the left.

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Gerald Ross
'Northwest Ann Arbor, Michigan's King Of The Hawaiian Steel Guitar'

CEO, CIO, CFO - UkeTone Records
Gerald's Fingerstyle Guitar Website
Board of Directors Hawaiian Steel Guitar Association

NEVER was that word "credentials" offered as a means of eliminating ANYONE from the FORUM. You know, if someone was going to perform open-heart surgery on one of your loved ones, would you want a really qualified surgeon or just someone, that went half-way thro' medical school and talked-up a big storm to impress everyone? I wonder...

It's NOT a case of OLD GUYS "this" or OLD GUYS "that", as another post would have you believe. It's NOT stubborness. It's NOT OLD GEEZERS being ignorant or unable to know the chords or not being arm pit deep into theory like a few of you late-bloomers that still don't know what strings to use for an E6 or E7th or A6th or C6th tuning change; or guys that change an entire set of new strings because the G# string broke on the first tune-up. It's not a bunch of fearful old men afraid of a bunch of fella's that think among themselves that they have ALL of THE ANSWERS needed to reinvent the wheel or the steel guitar and country or any other type of steel guitar music that exists today.

For those of you that just can't seem to get it after several years of posts here on the Forum on this same subject, regardless if your an olde, tiring Rock & Roller or not, the following might be one relatively solid, SIMPLE explanation of WHY tuning down from the top "E" might have had some legitimacy. WITH WHAT SOME OF YOU are smoking these days, it's doubtful you'll be able to absorb the true meaning of what this post is attempting to put across to you.

THE STANDARD FOR MANY A DECADE whether you were on the Grand Ole Opry or not, was to make sure everyone had the same "E" note to start out with. By tuning "E" from the top-DOWNWARD, any errors that might result during tuning would be at the lower end of the scale. In other words, nearly everyone would start out the first song and hopefully end up with the last song, AT THE SAME IDENTICAL PITCH. This was particularly advantageous when a vocalist was involved in the formula.

NOW, to muddy up the scenario, was when some yahoo would join the country band with an olde out-of-shape accordian; or, the band leader would allow someone to pound away on the very olde antique stage-piano that hadn't been tuned in more than forty years. Therein was a different problem.

But for a few of the standard guitar players that have only recently entered the arena of the long standing steel guitar community, let's say, since the era of good old "classic country rock", you know, in about the 1980's, give or take. For clarification, that was about the same time that the DISTORTION/Fuzz stomp box, tuning machines, Du-Wah pedals, compressors, analog-delays, choruses, RED standard GUITARS,etc., came into being. About the same time the phrase "anybody can play bass" became popular
Said another way, that's about the time that nice, clean, classy band uniforms went by the way and was replaced by often unwashed, smelly, shaggy haired, unshaven, drunken or doped up wanna-be musicians arrived on the scene. Oh, they often brought along non-functioning instruments as they often didn't deem that to be too awfully important either.

Another way of looking at it, "E" from the top down, was the way it was LONG BEFORE the new breed of short-cut takers started DE-TUNING guitars to be out of tune so that everyone that was out of tune, would blend more nicely with one another. That was about the time that electric, amplified, LEAD DRUMS became a popularity in the newly discovered 2 and 3 piece country-rock groups.

Probably high to low, though I don't talk tunings a lot and have no set way of describing them.

FWIW, I tune from high to low.

(damn RED GUITARS...!)

[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 06 February 2006 at 12:23 AM.]

[This message was edited by Gene Jones on 05 April 2006 at 04:08 AM.]

Unfortunately, most of my elders have alzheimer's.

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Would someone give me an "E"?

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E!!!

By the way, Chet Atkins played plenty of nice tasty stuff on a BRIGHT ORANGE GUITAR in the '50's.

[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 06 February 2006 at 05:10 AM.]

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That was about the time that electric, amplified, LEAD DRUMS

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Oh yeah, and if you want to see opposite systems, look at the number pad of your phone, and the number pad of your calculator or computer.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 06 February 2006 at 06:23 AM.]

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BTW, why would you imply that the old time players were musically illiterate?

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Because there were no instructional DVDs at the time?

I always count the thinnest string as the 1st one, but for some reason it seems more natural for me to write tunings from the bass and up. Don't know why, perhaps because that's the way I see the fretboard when I look at it, as someone else suggested.
But to avoid misunderstandings I always write "(low to high)" in front of the tuning....

Steinar

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www.gregertsen.com