Zane Beck talked me into taking on his tuning in 1977 after Scotty’s Convention. I’d only had a pedal steel (Sho Bud Pro II?) for about a year and a half … hadn’t even thought about the C6th! A visit to Zane’s place in Scranton and a bit of a “you can get this and you can get that on my tuning” and he gave me his guitar (I believe the one he played on “12 + 14 = Country Jazz” with Julian Tharpe) to take back home to Australia. He trusted me to send the money when I got back home! I honoured that trust as soon as I could after returning.

So I started my discovery of his tuning. Because I had all the Jeff Newman courses at the time I started exploring Zane’s tuning in terms of the E9th and was quickly able translate E9th TAB. It’s mostly all there, you know, with a few variations/compromises. Similarly, I set up tonal relationship charts for the C6th tuning & pedals/levers. They’re mostly all there as well. Zane’s tuning is probably the simplest “universal tuning” although few people realise this. Four floor pedals, for a start, is a great advantage over the cumbersome foot dancing that the “standard universal” tuning affords.

Zane knew that steel players are innately conservative when it comes to trying something different … it has to have the stamp of approval of a major player before it’s acceptable. Hence he used to call his tuning “E9th with an added 6th” … which is, in essence E13th …
“E13th pedal steel!!! … nah too hard … but I might just try Zane Beck’s E9th (with an added 6th)”

Here’s the good oil on Zane Beck’s E13th tuning:

       LKL LKV LKR p1  p2  p3  p4  RKL RKR

 1 G#                  A       A
 2 F#              G
 3 E    Eb      F              F#
 4 C#       D              D        D#
 5 B                       C#           C
 6 G#                  A       A
 7 F#           F  F
 8 D    Eb                          E
 9 B                       C#           Bb
10 G#                  G       A
11 E    Eb             F#
12 B               C#                   Bb

The open strings give you all the strings (bar string 8) of an E9th tuning as well as an expanded range taking you an octave lower (low B). The “chromatics” are “in line” with the equivalent to string 2 being pitched to “C#” (ZB’s string 4). When you use the 3rd floor pedal (which raises the B’s to C#) you also raise that 2nd string equivalent to “D” (this is then the equivalent of the ˝ stop found in typical E9th). You achieve the full equivalent of the E9th 2nd string when you activate RKL which raises the 4th string to “D#” while giving you the E9th equivalent to string 8 (by raising ZB’s string 8 “D” to “E”). The 2nd string equivalents are all positive stops. Because the tuning requires “grips” to achieve the equivalents to adjacent strings 3,4 and 5 on E9th, it all starts to look “alien” to a “died in the wool” E9th player.

The ABC pedal equivalents are 324 … hence a “Day” style setup. Pedal 4 emulates the C pedal of E9th but is not exact because it relies on pedal 3 to achieve the “B to C#” raise.

The B pedal equivalent is really clever! Because Zane was a thinker he didn’t just go out and raise string 10 to “A” (he left that to pedal 4). Instead, by going down one semitone he created the equivalent to the “F” string in the C6th tuning (in a different position). By activating pedal 2 & the up lever only you get the following “G” root chord (tonally): 1 3 5 7 9 3 5 6 7 9 (strings 10 to 1,) which equates to the open tuning C6th “F” chord 1 3 5 7 9 3 5 7 9 (strings 9 to 1). That big Major 9th chord (with the addition of an extra 6th tone on string 3).

The open tuning is also very clever and his choice of an 8th string “D” note instead of the “E” (opted for in the orthodox “universal tuning”) was for a very good reason and why his tuning is so elegant. In terms of tones, using “E” as a root note, Zane’s tuning is: 5 1 3 5 b7 9 3 5 6 1 9 3. Compare this to the C6th tuning with pedal 6 using “F” as a root note where you have: 5 1 3 5 b7 9 3 5 1. This is exactly the same but, (with ZB’s tuning), you also get the 13th tone (6) on string 4 and the 9th tone on string 2 without having to substitute a “D” string for the “G” string as Buddy Emmons did. Zane was thinking music as much as he was thinking tunings when he settled on his layout.

The LKL gives you B6th tuning with the tones: 1 3 6 1 3 5 6 1 9 3 5 6
whereas open C6th gives you: 1 4 6 1 3 5 6 1 3 5. Note that ZB’s tuning replaces the low 4th tone with a 3rd and gives you the rest of the C6th tones with the addition of a high 6th on string 1 but with the “intervention” of a 9th tone at string 4 (the “D” equivalent in the Emmons setup). At the same time the LKL functions the same as your 4 & 8 string semitone lower in “E9th” mode.

Pedal 1 is the rough equivalent of pedals 5 & 6 on the Jimmy Day setup. The tonal comparison using “B” & “C” respectively as root notes is. ZB: 9 4 6 1 b3 b5 6 1 9 4 #5 6
& JD C6th: 9 b5 6 1 b3 b5 6 1 4 #5. Certainly fairly close.

But, everything’s a compromise, and the tuning doesn’t make the player. It’s the other way round.

I hope there’s food for thought there.

Graham

[This message was edited by Graham Griffith on 05 October 2002 at 02:03 AM.]

I met Zane in 1968 at Tom Bradshaw's first pedal steel show in Napa,CA. I thought he played great and I could understand a little of what he was doing, because I was playing E6 -E13, but no E9th.

After all these years playing Zane's tuning I'm still a bit of a dummy but I keep trying. You can hear some of what I do with the tuning at one of my web sites www.listen.to/outofnowhere ... my wife and I have essentially two bands ... one Hawaiian & the other like the web site. Don't be fooled by the Eharp ... I play this also but not on the recordings. I like to play swing but have to create the opportunities as there's not a lot of interest here.

As to the application on a 10 stringer, Wayne, I would suggest from (low)G# up but there'd be some things you'd miss. If you don't care so much for the "country-ability" of the tuning I can post a wonderful tuning from a local player here called Jack Richards. He owes very little to the American tradition of pedal steel tunings & is somewhat unique.He was a jazz/popular guitarist with the post war big bands/orchestras here.

Graham

[This message was edited by Graham Griffith on 05 October 2002 at 09:22 PM.]

RLK with LLK and Pedal 3 and 4 ought to do it. The hard part, is changing your grip spacing.

And that is the big problem for players that have been playing standard E9 for awhile.

I like the "D" because:

a) The high A on top
b) Raise 2nd, 7th,to G and lower 11th to F with a pedal, raise 5th to C with knee, and I have a C 6th.
c) Lower 4th to C# and raise 9th to C# with a knee, and I have an A 6th.

Most of all, I just like the way the whole thing sounds to my ear, but it's all in your cup of tea I suppose.

If any of you heard Don Buzard in St. Louis in 1977 I think, he had this tuning on his top neck with 13 strings, with an A on the bottom.

A 10 string with this tuning in D is cool, simple, and easy. Just omit the 1st and 12th strings.

Al's right about the lever combinations, although I might add the use of your "AB" pedals (2&3 on the ZB tuning). Similarly Wayne's wigged out the grips for the descending major scale ... spot on. "Grips" are certainly the challenge after being used to the orthodox tuning.

Wayne, here's Jack Richards' tuning ... a real serious "jazz" tuning for those big chords. Note that string 9 is around .056W & string ten has to be about .072W (Jack used a bass string). Another great thing about Jack's playing was the fact that he used an octave lower extra neck (non pedal) with the top 6 strings for soloing single string style. Jack's 82 now and has retired from playing.

Jack was a pioneer here when he did a production run of 100 "Kord King" pedal steels in 1948 here in Sydney.

       LKL LKR P1  P2  P3  RKL RKR

 1 G#                  -G   +A
 2 F#              
 3 E   -Eb     +F              
 4 C#              +D
 5 B        +C                  -Bb        
 6 G#                  -G   +A
 7 E           +F
 8 C#              +D
 9 E           +F            
10 A                 

Graham

[This message was edited by Graham Griffith on 08 October 2002 at 05:30 PM.]

You've mentioned some changes but, could you list any others. If you want to call them by the usual, lkl lkr 1 2 3 etc names, I'd gladly "construct" a copedant setup for you and post it. The idea of "D" sounds great ... and what it offers.

Wayne,

RKR is an odd change that I rarely use. When I spent 3 months with Zane Beck in late '78, he talked me into another knee lever, lowering string 5 only from B to Bb. I have this "alongside" the RKR listed change ... only on the other side. My actual "Zane Beck" copedant is:

     LKL LKV LKR p1  p2  p3  p4 RKLa RKLb RKR

 G#                  A       A
 F#              G
 E    Eb      F              F#
 C#       D              D                 D#
 B                       C#      Bb    C
 G#                  A       A
 F#           F  F
 D    Eb                                   E
 B                       C#            Bb
 G#                  G       A
 E    Eb         C#  
 B                                     Bb

This (without the B to Bb string 5 change) was the actual copedant that Zane was playing in '77 when I met him. He was always experimenting I guess. As you can see, he later changed a few things around (as with the copedant you posted). The "new" B to Bb lower I use all the time as it gives me a great 9th chord two frets behind "open" on the upper 7 strings. It also affords a Maj 7th in the "E-Eb lower" major position. A flat 5 in open dominant position. A minor, one fret up from "open" (in combination with LKL)... and there's a few more. It also splits to "C" with the B to C# raise giving me that augmented chord. As to the original RKR question ... well, I must have missed the boat, because Zane only ever showed me a great descending chromatic chordal resolution from a V to a I chord with this ... and I can get the same thing with other pedal/string combinations. My new Anapeg pedal steel won't have this change (unless someone can show me the key to it's use).

Graham

[This message was edited by Graham Griffith on 07 October 2002 at 04:33 AM.]

it's amazing you remember me ... as far as that goes ... I certainly remember you ... you were with Dottie West at one stage, right? You're a great player. I think Zane wanted to recruit you to his tuning and you may have tried it for a while.

Regards

After a lengthy discussion with Jack Richards I discovered that his tuning was more like:

       LKL LKV LKR P1  P2  P3      P4 RKL RKR
 1 G#                              -G   
 2 F#              +G 
 3 E   -Eb  +F             +F              
 4 C#                  +D
 5 B           +B#                        -Bb
 6 G#                              -G +A
 7 E                       +F
 8 C#                  +D
 9 E           
10 A                 

His prototype pedal steel setup (early 40's)was:

       P1  P2  P3  P4  (P5 1948 production)
 1 E               +F# (-F lowered from P4) 
 2 C#  +D           
 3 B             
 4 G#          +A     
 5 B      +B#                     
 6 E                              
 7 C#  +D                    
 8 E                

Graham

[This message was edited by Graham Griffith on 08 October 2002 at 08:17 PM.]

Zane's tuning & pedal arrangement, as you probably realise, relies upon the 8th string being "D" & not "E" ... particularly because of the open string continuous dominant 9th chord (strings 11 through to 7) and the continuous major 9th chord (strings 10 through to 6) & minor 9th chord (strings 9 through to 4) when you use the 2nd floor pedal.

Despite my partisan situation, though, I do see the problem for the "E9th" player.

Graham

[This message was edited by Graham Griffith on 13 October 2002 at 03:28 PM.]

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